Moscow-backed authorities in Melitopol posted images of a fire.
Mon 12 December 2022:
Members of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group are said to have been killed in an attack by Ukrainian forces on a hotel where many of them were staying in a town in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, according to the region’s Ukrainian governor.
In an interview with Ukrainian television on Sunday, exiled Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said that Ukraine had launched a strike on a hotel in Kadiivka, west of the region’s main center of Luhansk. Photos shared on Telegram channels showed a building that had been mostly demolished.
“They had a little pop there, just where Wagner headquarters was located,” Haidai said.
“A huge number of those who were there died,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry was not immediately available for comment and Reuters news agency could not independently verify the information.
Local officials were cited in some Ukrainian media as saying the hotel had been closed for a while, while the Russian state news agency TASS reported on its Telegram channel that a hotel in Stakhanov, which is another name for Kadiivka in Russian, had been destroyed by a Ukrainian HIMARS missile attack and that rescue workers were removing the wreckage.
Explosion in occupied Kadiyivka in Ukraine’s east destroyed a hotel where “many mercenaries of [Russian] Wagner [Group]” were located—governor Serhiy Haidai
Russian media claimed that the explosion was caused by HIMARS. https://t.co/5SCsZB3EVI pic.twitter.com/cv8vWfQ7w8
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) December 11, 2022
The Wagner Group – a brutal fighting force of mercenaries with the goal of furthering Russia’s military interests around the world – operates in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali and has been accused of numerous rights violations, including torture and killings.
Controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Wagner opened its first official headquarters in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg in early November.
Prigozhin is a tycoon whose vast wealth comes from Kremlin catering contracts and whose notoriety comes from ownership of Russia’s most-famous private mercenary company, Vagner — also known as Wagner — as well as its best-known “troll factory.”
Wagner have also played an outsized role in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, thanks in part to setbacks that some military analysts have blamed on Russian military and intelligence failures.
Wagner’s exact origins, meanwhile, are shrouded in mystery, but Russian reporters and researchers like Rondeaux say the company evolved out of a network of private security companies run by former Russian special forces soldiers.
Soldiers from the group were believed to have fought in Ukraine’s Donbas after the Russian-fueled war broke out there in 2014.
And after the Kremlin ordered a large intervention in Syria to bolster the embattled regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2015, Wagner soldiers gained a further reputation for wanton brutality, where they provided security for diplomats, guarded oil and gas facilities, and trained local militias. Wagner mercenaries have also been reported in the Central African Republic, working in operations to mine and export diamonds and valuable minerals.
In addition to anecdotal evidence of Wagner troops participating in the Ukrainian fighting, credible reporting has shown Prigozhin and other Vagner representatives touring Russian prisons to recruit troops to fight in Ukraine in exchange for amnesty and salaries well above the average Russian wage.
Russian drone target energy facilities
Further west in Odesa, more than 1.5 million people have been without power today after Russian drone attacks hit two energy facilities, according to Zelensky.
He said in his nightly address yesterday: ‘At this time, it has become possible to partially restore supplies in Odesa and other cities and districts in the region.
‘We are doing everything to reach the maximum number possible in the conditions that developed after the Russian strikes.’
Russian forces used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy plants in Odesa on Saturday, knocking out power to about 1.5 million customers – virtually all non-critical infrastructure in and around the port.
Zelensky said Odesa was ‘among the regions with the most frequent power outages’.
Other areas experiencing ‘very difficult’ conditions with power supplies, including the capital Kyiv and Kyiv region and four regions in western Ukraine and Dnipropetrovsk region in the centre of the country.
The work on restoring electricity for the general population was constant, Zelensky said.
Since October, Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with large waves of missile and drone strikes.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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