Last Updated on May 22, 2023
Russian forces have reportedly captured the besieged city of Bakhmut after months of heavy fighting and after the media arms of NATO nations claimed that the Russian campaign there was on the verge of collapse and that a Russian retreat from the city was imminent.
Russia claims that it’s captured the city of Bakhmut after months of heavy fighting that’s cost the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict.
Despite claims from Western media outlets, which asserted just recently that the Russian campaign for Bakhmut was on the verge of collapse, as well as claims from the Ukrainian side of the conflict that the city has not been captured, video footage and photographs have emerged in recent hours that purportedly show the city under Russian control.
Additionally, Ukraine is reportedly maneuvering on the outskirts of the city, in an effort to encircle it and recapture it. This, while claiming that the city has not been captured.
⚡️Wagner driving through the centre of Bakhmut today pic.twitter.com/YFf6iMkSdY
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) May 21, 2023
“Not a single Ukrainian military was left in Bakhmut, because we stopped taking prisoners,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner Group, the private military contractor that’s affiliated with the Kremlin and has taken on a very active role in Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, especially in the fight for Bakhmut.
“There are a huge number of corpses of Ukrainian Military,” he added, before taking a dig at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been criticized by global observers and by his own people for hurling tens of thousands of young Ukrainian men at the city, even after it was revealed that his soldiers had a “4-hour life expectancy” upon reaching the Bakhmut frontlines.
Over the weekend, when Zelensky attended the G7 summit, the Ukrainian President compared the destruction of Bakhmut to that of Hiroshima, and said that the city now only exists “in our hearts.”
Bakhmut is located in the Donbas region of Ukraine, a region that sought to secede from that nation and join Russia after the 2014 Soros-backed revolution that overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russia government and set off the geopolitical chain of events that’s put the world on the brink of World War 3.
Since 2014, Bakhmut was occupied by Ukrainian forces, and the fight for the city has become a rallying cry on both sides of the conflict.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of the US Congress, he called Bakhmut Ukraine’s “stronghold in the Donbas” and said that the fight for the city would “change the trajectory of our war.”
Now that the 🇺🇦 supporters are claiming Bakhmut was of no strategic importance…
Flashback to 12/21/2022:
Zelensky speaks before US Congress.
He says Bakhmut is the “stronghold in the Donbas” and that the Battle for Bakhmut will “change the trajectory of our war”. pic.twitter.com/sAbtA6fIRE
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) May 21, 2023
