Thu 25 May 2023:

Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has started withdrawing its forces from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said.

A video posted on Telegram by his press service showed Prigozhin dressed in battle gear and standing beside a war-damaged residential block when making the statement.

“We are withdrawing the units from Bakhmut. From today at five in the morning, May 25 until June 1, most of the units will re-base to camps in the rear. We are handing our positions to the military,” he said.

Prigozhin announced the capture of Bakhmut on Saturday after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. He said his fighters would pull out and regular Russian troops would move in to replace them.

20,000 of its troops killed in Bakhmut battle

Some 20,000 troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group were killed in the months-long battle for control of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, its founder has said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had recruited about 50,000 prisoners to fight with Wagner in Russia’s war in Ukraine and that about 20 percent of them had been killed.

A similar number of his contract soldiers had also perished in the battle for the city, he told Russian political strategist Konstantin Dolgov in a video interview posted on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.

Prigozhin, a businessman whose influence has deepened since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, has scathingly criticised the country’s military leadership, accusing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of incompetence.

Last year, Prigozhin toured Russian prisons in a bid to convince inmates to fight with Wagner in Ukraine in exchange for an amnesty if they survived to return home.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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