The Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed responsibility for the capture of Bakhmout town hall on Monday, April 3. “In the legal sense, Bakhmout has been captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas”, Wagner chief Evgeny Prigojine said on Telegram. A video accompanying his message shows him waving a Russian flag with an inscription in honor of Vladlen Tatarsky, Russian military blogger fervent defender of the offensive in Ukraine killed Sunday by the explosion of a bomb.
A few hours earlier, the Ukrainian general staff had however affirmed the contrary. “The enemy did not stop their assault on Bakhmout. However, the Ukrainian defenders bravely hold the city repelling numerous enemy attacks”, the Ukrainian General Staff reported on its Facebook page on Sunday evening. Follow our live.
Bakhmout, scene of violent fighting. Because of the long months of battle and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, the city has become the symbol of the struggle between Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass. Russian troops have advanced in recent months north and south of the city, cutting several Ukrainian supply routes and seizing its eastern part.
A Russian bombardment kills six. In Kostiantynivka on Sunday, a bombardment killed three men and three women, and injured 11, according to Ukrainian authorities. These are “just living quarters”, “ordinary civilians from an ordinary town in Donbass” who were targeted, reacted President Volodymyr Zelensky. AFP journalists saw a large crater in a courtyard and shattered windows from the ground floor to the upper floors in two 14-storey buildings, while the roofs of neighboring houses were shattered. The police claimed that Russia had carried out in the morning a “massive attack”or six S-300 and Hurricane missile strikes.
Zelensky salutes the Ukrainian resistance. “Ukrainian people! (…) You have stopped a force that despises and wants to destroy everything that matters to people,” launched the Ukrainian president on Sunday. “We will liberate all our lands. We will return the Ukrainian flag to all our cities and towns,” he also supported, while Russia still controls more than 18% of Ukrainian territory. Volodymyr Zelensky spoke in Boutcha, one year to the day after the discovery of the bodies of civilians killed in this city which has become a symbol of the atrocities committed by the Russians.