Kiev: Russian forces 'decreased' attacks on Bakhmut to regroup
Iran Press TV
Sunday, 28 May 2023 7:37 AM
Russian attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut have "decreased" so that Moscow regroups its forces and strengthens their capabilities, a senior Kiev official said.
In a statement published via Telegram on Saturday, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Russian forces have continued attacking but that "overall offensive activity has decreased."
Russian forces had "made a bet on conducting air strikes and intensive artillery fire," she said, adding, "The decrease in the enemy's offensive activity is due to the fact that troops are being replaced and regrouped."
"The enemy is trying to strengthen its capabilities," Maliar said.
Russia's Wagner military group announced on Thursday that the military group began handing over its positions to regular Russian military troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut.
"By May 25, we will completely examine [Bakhmut], create the necessary lines of defense, and hand it to the military," Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wanger's chief, had noted in a video posted on Telegram last week that featured Wagner forces holding up Russian flags in the city, adding, "We ourselves will go into field camps."
The new development came as the Wagner military group announced earlier on Saturday that its forces had declared full control of the city after months of fighting.
Ukraine has rejected Russian claims to have captured Bakhmut entirely, insisting its forces still have a foothold in the Donbas city and are steadily encircling the Russian forces holding the ruined town center.
Maliar said on Saturday that Ukrainian troops "hold down" the heights overlooking Bakhmut from the north and south, as well as part of the city's outskirts, but have not advanced for the past two days to focus on "other tasks."
Moscow says Bakhmut would be a stepping stone and a rare battlefield gain in completing the capture of the Donbas industrial region (composed of Donetsk and Luhansk), one of Moscow's most important objectives.
The battle over the city has been described as the heaviest to take place between the Russian and Ukrainian forces since last year's February, when Moscow began its "special military operation" in the ex-Soviet republic.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in an interview on Saturday that Wagner's forces are "regrouping to another three locations" after what he called their partial withdrawal from Bakhmut.
Danilov insisted that Ukraine's much-anticipated upcoming counteroffensive hasn't begun yet. He said that the Ukrainian attacks on Russian control centers and Russian military equipment have been ongoing since the beginning of the conflict.
Also, Mykhailo Podolyak, the Ukrainian Presidential aide, speaking to the UK's Guardian newspaper, said preliminary operations such as destroying supply lines or blowing up depots had already begun.
His comments came as an attack by two drones on an oil pipeline facility on Saturday caused an explosion in Russia's Pskov region near the border with Belarus, damaging an office building. Russia has blamed Kiev for the incident.
Ukrainian authorities have never publicly confirmed Kiev's attacks against targets inside Russia, but top Ukrainian officials have occasionally welcomed news of successful drone strikes on Russian soil.
Meanwhile, a statement released Friday by the intelligence directorate of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense claimed, without offering evidence, that Russia is plotting a "large-scale provocation" at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, with the aim of disrupting a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.
There was no immediate comment from the IAEA or Russian officials on the allegations. But former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently serving as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, has warned earlier that if Russia loses, a nuclear war could break out.
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