Yevgeny Prigorzhin, head of Russia’s Wagner private military company, again inspected the front lines in the eastern city of Bahmut, according to video geolocated by CNN.
The video, uploaded on Monday, was shot by Russian journalist Aleksandr Simonov. It is unclear exactly when he was shot.
“The Wagner Group does not always allow war correspondents to join them. I asked the boss of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s company, and he allowed me to go with me to the fighters’ positions on the Bachmutka River, where the Bach Intense fighting is taking place in the central region of Mut,” Simonov said.
The river flows north and south from the eastern suburbs of the city.
In the video, a soldier wearing a balaclava said: “The enemy is 150-180 meters northwest of us… Every house is a fortress, and every five or nine-story building is a fortress.”
The fighter said Wagner had attacked northern Bakhmut the day before and claimed they had killed more than 30 Ukrainian soldiers. CNN was unable to verify the claim.
“We’re going, Bachmut will fall, we’ll be victorious,” he said.
“We’re crossing the front lines,” Prigozhin said. “We’re looking at where we can do it better, and do it faster.”
One of the fighters said they were at the fifth school in Bakhmut. CNN has pinpointed the video to that location in south-central Bachmut.
Later, Prigorzhin said from another source that he was in a cemetery in the nearby town of Soledar, adding, “We buried the bodies of Ukrainians that we could not hand over. We took pictures and numbered them so they could be handed over later.” “
Prigozhin has visited Bahmut and its surrounding areas several times in recent weeks.
What both sides are saying: Both Ukrainian and Wagner officials acknowledged street fighting in the city, and the Ukrainians claimed they had stabilized the situation in Bakhmut.
Wagner said it now controls all of a metallurgical plant called AZOM on the northern edge of the city.