Ukraine War: Wagner Leader Demands Russia Reinforcements As Ukraine Announces Advances In Bakhmut | International

The Ukrainian authorities have announced certain advances on Monday in the disputed city of Bakhmut while the leader of the Russian mercenary franchise Wagner demanded more reinforcements from Moscow to face the battle unleashed in that eastern town. In this way, the leader of this militia, Yevgeni Progozhin, once again expresses his disagreement with the way in which President Vladimir Putin and his government are managing the war unleashed in the neighboring country. He even goes so far as to call them "bureaucratic bastards." Bakhmut, nestled in the Donetsk province, continues to be, after almost 10 months of very violent clashes and thousands of deaths on both sides, the main center on which the tension of the armed conflict unleashed with the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia attacked with missiles in the early hours of May 1 for the second time in three days different provinces of Ukraine. Most of the shells were aimed at the kyiv region and were intercepted, according to authorities. But in the town of Pavlograd, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the shelling left dozens of neighboring houses burning and caused around thirty injuries.

kyiv does not hide that the situation continues to be "difficult" in Bakhmut, where the advances of the invading troops have been taking place since last year. This was reported by General Oleksandr Sirski, commander of the Ukrainian land forces, according to a message posted on the Telegram social network after visiting that front on Sunday. It was in that same statement in which he celebrated certain advances by his men, who in the last few hours have recovered, according to that version, some positions after carrying out several successful counterattacks. The enemy, added the general, continues to be unable to take Bakhmut under his control despite the dispatch of new units made up of paratroopers and members of Wagner who are suffering a high number of casualties.

Prigozhin, a businessman known as the Putin's chef, assures that his men need about 300 tons of artillery shells a day to face the battle of Bakhmut and that they are only receiving a hundred. "300 tons a day is 10 containers, it's not that much, but no more than a third of that reaches us," criticizes Prigozhin in a video posted on his Telegram profile, a platform from which he frequently expresses his disagreement with Moscow. , especially with the Ministry of Defense. Wagner's boss is shown arriving aboard an SUV at a warehouse he claims is located in the Ukrainian town of Soledar, which Russian troops have controlled since last January. After taking off his bulletproof vest, Prigozhin launches the message of him looking at the camera while opening some boxes with rifles. In another video, he takes advantage of his presence in that same city to wish peace and congratulate May Day, the day that also commemorates the birth of Wagner, whose men had already become famous in missions to African countries or in war from Syria.

If the Wagner group's destiny is to disappear, he warns defiantly, this will not happen "at the hands of the Ukrainian army or NATO, but by our bureaucratic bastards back home."

Apart from Bakhmut, the attacks continued not only in the east and the south, the two areas where the war is fiercest, but the Russian bombardments took place this Monday in different regions, in addition to the aforementioned Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk . One of them caused the death of a child in Chernihiv. In the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, under Russian occupation since 2014, local authorities dependent on Moscow announced that anti-aircraft batteries had shot down a drone.

A train carrying fuel was attacked in Russia's Briansk border region, authorities said. There were no casualties but seven carriages and two locomotives derailed.

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