Wagner Group leaving Bakhmut, Russian forces taking over – Prigozhin.

Russian Paramilitary Group Leader Announces Troop Withdrawal from Besieged City

Russian paramilitary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has announced that his troops are beginning to withdraw from the besieged city of Bakhmut, to be replaced by traditional Russian forces.

Prigozhin, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the announcement on Thursday, stating that a large portion of the Wagner Group troops would be relocated by the beginning of June. This comes just days after he declared his troops had captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the epicenter of the longest and most deadly battle in the 15-month-long war.

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“By June 1, the main part will relocate to the rear camps. We transfer positions to the military. The ammo, positions, everything, including dry rations,” Prigozhin said in a video posted on Telegram.

Despite Prigozhin’s claim about having taken control of Bakhmut, Ukrainians have maintained that there are still small pockets of resistance, mainly on the outskirts of the city.

Withdrawal and Replacement Puts Pressure on Russian Forces

Hanna Mailar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, confirmed that Wagner soldiers were being “replaced” while insisting Ukrainian forces still “control the outskirts of the city in the southwestern part of the ‘Airplane’ area.” Their withdrawal and subsequent replacement will put pressure on the Russian forces to maintain the Wagner Group’s gains over the last six months. Prigozhin had been given the opportunity to lead the charge in Bakhmut after Russian forces led the initial invasion and faced heavy casualties and sustainment problems early on in the war.

The number of clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut has decreased in recent days, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, the spokesman for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“What we can state today is that over the past three days, the number of engagements primarily with Wagner’s units in the Bakhmut direction has decreased,” Serhii Cherevatyi told CNN on Thursday. “We explain this by the significant exhaustion of Wagner’s units over the previous months of fighting and the fact that they need to regroup and recover.”

A day earlier, Prigozhin seemingly confirmed U.S. intelligence that the Wagner Group suffered roughly 20,000 soldiers killed in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut while providing a bleak picture of Russia in the war.

“I think today, the Ukrainians are one of the strongest armies. They have high levels of organization and preparedness, high level of intelligence; they have all kinds of weapons. … F*** knows how, but we’ve militarized Ukraine,” he said in a recent interview.

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Prigozhin has, for months, been at odds with senior leaders of Russia’s military, having previously accused them of treason for supposedly withholding ammunition and other necessities from them.