Wagner Group admits Ukrainian advance in Bakhmut; Kiev denies start of counter-offensive

Russian mercenary group leader Wagner said on Thursday that Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive was already underway and gaining gains on the outskirts of the city of Bakhmut, while Kiev said its main effort had yet to start.

The Ukrainian operations were “unfortunately, partially successful”, said on social media Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose force of mercenaries and convicts recruited from prison has been leading Russia’s main military campaign in Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine.

Kiev says it has pushed back Russian forces over the past two days near Bakhmut in small-scale local attacks, but a counteroffensive involving tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of new Western tanks has yet to start.

“We still need a little more time,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with European broadcasters released on Thursday.

Ukrainian forces had already received enough equipment from Western allies for their campaign, but were awaiting the arrival of full force to reduce casualties, according to Zelensky.

“With (what we have) we can move forward and be successful,” he said. “But we would lose a lot of people. I find that unacceptable.”

Prigozhin, a once secretive figure who has recently issued daily statements criticizing the Russian command for not adequately supplying its fighters, said Zelensky was being “deceitful” and that the Ukrainian offensive was already underway.

As Prigozhin’s forces struggle in the center of the city, he said Ukraine was making gains on its flanks in areas defended by regular Russian troops, some of whom had fled.

The war in Ukraine is at a turning point, with Kiev ready to launch its new counterattack after six months of keeping its forces on the defensive, while Russia has mounted a massive winter offensive that has failed to capture significant territory.

Western allies are sending hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles into Ukraine for its counter-offensive and have trained thousands of Ukrainian troops abroad.

Moscow’s main target for months has been the small town of Bakhmut, which it came close to capturing but has yet to capture what would be its only prize after months of the bloodiest ground fighting in Europe since World War Two.

In anticipation of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, Russia has resumed air strikes against Ukraine in the last two weeks after a pause of nearly two months. Moscow says Ukraine has used drones to attack occupied areas and Russian territory near the border.

In the latest report, the governor of the Russian region of Bryansk, on the border with Ukraine, said that a drone hit a fuel depot. No one was hurt. Kiev does not comment on such incidents.