Global Courant 2023-04-30 09:28:10
Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said casualties in Bakhmut would be “five times less if we had more ammunition.”
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has threatened to withdraw his troops from the key battle of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine as casualties mount.
Losses in Bakhmut were five times higher than necessary due to the lack of artillery ammunition, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an interview published Saturday with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov.
“Every day we have piles of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home,” Prigozhin said.
Prigozhin said he had written to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu asking for ammunition to be delivered as soon as possible.
“If the ammunition shortage is not replenished, we will be forced – not to run like cowardly rats afterwards – to retreat or die,” he said.
The withdrawal of some fighters from Bakhmut would be likely, but he warned that it would mean the collapse of the Russian frontline elsewhere.
In an audio statement published Saturday night on his press service’s Telegram messaging app, the Wagner boss said he lost 94 fighters due to a lack of ammunition supplies.
“It would have been five times less if we had more ammunition,” said Prigozhin, who previously accused Russia’s regular forces of not giving his men the ammunition they need. He has also accused the Russian top of treason.
A Ukrainian army spokesman said on Saturday that Russian forces have been unable to cut off supply lines to the Ukrainian defenders of Bakhmut.
Russian troops have been trying to make their way through the shattered remains of what was once a city of 70,000 for 10 months, and the battle of attrition for Bakhmut has become known as the “meat grinder” due to the high casualty rate.
“For several weeks now, the Russians have been talking about taking the ‘road of life’ and constant fire control over it,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces in the east, said in an interview with the local news website. Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.
“Yes, it is really difficult there… (but) the armed forces have not allowed the Russians to cut off our logistics,” he said.
The “road of life” is a vital road between the ruined Bakhmut and the nearby town of Chasiv Yar to the west – a distance of just over 17 km (10 mi).
The supply of supplies, arms and ammunition is assured, Cherevatyi said, and Ukrainian forces maintained their positions along the road and engineers had already built new roads to Bakhmut.
“All this allows us to detain Bakhmut,” he said.
If Bakhmut fell, Chasiv Yar would likely be next to come under Russian attack, according to military analysts, though the city is on higher ground and Ukrainian troops are believed to have built defenses nearby.
Ukraine has pledged to defend Bakhmut, a city that Russia sees as a springboard to attack other Ukrainian territories.
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