Bakhmut is still under siege.
But the battle , as well as with weapons, is fought with communication and propaganda . This time the invaders relied on a video in which Yevgeny Prigozhin , the head of Wagner , announced that he had hoisted the Russian flag on the roof of the town hall , claiming that the Donbass town is "technically" in the hands of his private militias. Immediate reply from Kiev : all false , our defense is still standing. "It's not over, the Ukrainians are resisting", confirms the US. After months of extremely violent clashes, which reduced Bakhmut to rubble and cost the lives of thousands of soldiers on both sides, the Wagner praetorians who lead the assaults on behalf of Moscow proclaimed a de facto victory. Their leader, the "Putin's chef", had himself immortalized in his usual camouflage and helmet, holding up a flag, filmed by what appears to be a night vision goggle: «April 2, 23 o'clock. Behind me the building of the Artemovsk city administration (the Russian name of Bakhmut). This is the Russian flag and the commands that have taken over the city hall and the entire central district will place them,” Prigozhin announced.
Adding that "technically we took Bakhmut", while "the enemy remained in the western quarters". A more blatant gesture followed: a dedication, right on the flag, to the "memory" of the ultranationalist blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, killed in an attack in a café in St. Petersburg . The two were considered close, united by repeated criticism of the military command in Moscow for the limited successes in the offensive in Ukraine. Kiev's reply to Bakhmut came in the space of a few hours. "The enemy has not stopped its assault but the Ukrainians are defending the city with courage," the General Staff said. While the commander of the ground forces Alexander Syrsky met his soldiers right in the city. As for Volodymyr Zelensky, he limited himself to confirming that the front remains "particularly hot".
The assessments of the White House are of the same tenor: "I cannot confirm that the Russians have taken control of Bakhmut but I can confirm that the Ukrainians are still in the midst of the battle and have not been driven out", reported John Kirby. Indeed, after 14 months of war, the Ukrainians continue to demonstrate that they are capable of standing up to the enemy. Waiting for further military supplies promised by Westerners. The American ones should arrive this week , and in the meantime Poland has delivered the first MiGs. Zelensky will go to Warsaw next Wednesday , but his day was dedicated to visiting the village of Yahidne, in the Chernihiv oblast. To commemorate the imprisonment of 400 residents in a 200 square meter basement in the first month of the invasion. " We are preparing to liberate our land ", although "it is difficult to say how and when this will happen", underlined the Ukrainian leader, who was accompanied by the secretary general of the Council of Europe Marija Pejcinovic Buric and the German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck. Moscow's response is the progressive militarization of Belarus. The Kremlin has announced that training of allied crews for the Iskander missile system has begun. While the ambassador in Minsk Boris Gryzlov reported that Russian nuclear weapons will be deployed "on the western borders of the Union State". Dangerously close to Poland.
(Unioneonline/vf)