Kyiv said its army was thwarting relentless attacks by Moscow’s troops on Bakhmut, as the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group warned defeat for his fighters outside the ruined city would cause the collapse of the Kremlin’s forces in eastern Ukraine.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military’s eastern command, said Bakhmut was Russia’s “priority target, but our commanders and servicemen are doing everything to defend this settlement and also inflict maximum losses on the enemy”.
At the same time, he has accused Russia’s defence ministry of trying to undermine Wagner – which has swollen its ranks with thousands of convicts recruited from jails – by failing to acknowledge its battlefield successes and starving it of ammunition. A Ukrainian military vehicle passes a destroyed building in Bakhmut. Photograph: Nicole Tung/New York Times
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