« The ideal option would be to announce the end of the conflict and firmly establish itself in the occupied territories, to inform everyone that Russia has achieved the expected results which, in a sense, we have really achieved ».
The advice to Vladimir Putin comes directly from Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner , which is officially a group of private mercenaries but is actually a paramilitary group directly employed by the Kremlin.
Just Wagner is dealing with the hottest front of these last few weeks of conflict, that of Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk where violent fighting is underway . "The city is surrounded," declared the Russian Defense Ministry, partially denied by Prigozhin himself. « The Ukrainian army continues to bring reinforcements and transfer them to the city. Difficult and bloody fighting is going on, so it is premature to talk about a complete encirclement of Bakhmut ».
According to the US think tank Isw (Institute for the study of the war) Prigozhin is creating the conditions to exploit a possible military failure if the expected Ukrainian counter-offensive is successful.
(Unioneonline/L)