And Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of Wagner, said in a video clip posted on the “Telegram” app that the delivery will be completed by June 1. There was no immediate comment from the Russian Defense Ministry.
It has not been independently verified whether Wagner’s withdrawal from the bombed city actually began.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Wednesday heavy fighting continued inside the eastern city after a nine-month battle that left tens of thousands dead.
Prigozhin won a valuable victory in Bakhmut, which Russia, according to Western observers, needed after military operations in Ukraine lost momentum.
There is now the possibility of a Ukrainian counterattack using advanced weaponry supplied by Kyiv’s Western allies.
Ukraine’s top presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Thursday that a Ukrainian counterattack was already underway, warning it should not be predicted as “a single event starting at a specific time on a specific day”.
Podolyak wrote, on Twitter, that “dozens of different actions to destroy what he described as Russian occupation forces already took place yesterday, are taking place today and will continue tomorrow.”
During the 15-month-long war in Ukraine, Commander Wagner repeatedly and publicly criticized Russian military leaders, accusing them of incompetence and failing to adequately supply his forces as they fought the Battle of Bakhmut.
Wagner’s involvement in the capture of Bakhmut boosted Prigozhin’s prestige, which he used to voice his personal views on the conduct of the war.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said that “Prigozhin … uses the perception that Wagner is responsible for Bakhmut’s capture to promote an unreasonable level of influence over the war effort from Russia to Ukraine”.
Prigozhin’s candid statement about what he will do next week in Bakhmut came a day after he again strayed from the Kremlin line on Ukraine.
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