The Wagner private military company has announced that it is handing over control of Bakhmut to the Russian Army, days after declaring victory in the Ukrainian city. Wagner leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin stated that Russia’s regular soldiers should not expect any further help from the group, at least not in Bakhmut. The move could open a new phase of the struggle for Bakhmut, testing whether the Russian Army can hold the hard-won ground against Ukrainian forces that have advanced on the city’s outskirts and are preparing to launch a broader counteroffensive. Regular Russian Army units have replaced Wagner fighters in Bakhmut’s suburbs, while Wagner forces remain inside the city.
The repositioning around the city came as Russia and Ukraine engaged in dueling drone battles on Thursday. Ukraine’s military said that it shot down dozens of Russian drones aimed at targets across the country before dawn, while Russian officials said they had thwarted an attack by Ukrainian aerial and maritime drones taking aim at the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Even as its forces have reinforced a maze of fortified defensive positions across hundreds of miles of farmland, fields and river banks in recent weeks, Moscow has also stepped up aerial bombardments to try to disrupt Ukrainian military preparations for a counteroffensive, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts.
Ukraine has spent weeks targeting key Russian command and control centers, rail lines, air fields and other military installations across occupied territories with the…
2023-05-25 17:03:32
Post from www.nytimes.com