Russian mercenary boss wants Bakhmut due to its underground cities
World
Bakhmut victory would be pyrrhic due to heavy losses to Russian side, Western military experts
LONDON (Reuters) - The founder of the most well-known mercenary organization in Russia has declared on Saturday that he wanted his men and the official Russian army to occupy the small Ukrainian city of Bakhmut because it has "subterranean cities" that could house troops and tanks.
Some Western military analysts have been perplexed by Russia s arduous, more than five-month-long push to try and take Bakhmut. They claim that any Russian victory there would be pyrrhic due to heavy losses suffered on the Russian side and the fact that Ukraine has built defensive lines to fall back to nearby.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary organisation Wagner that is engaged in the Battle of Bakhmut, detailed on Saturday why he believed its conquest would be important.
Given Wagner s involvement in the combat there, Prigozhin claimed that stocks of weaponry had been kept in the subterranean installations since World War One.
The most intensive combat in Ukraine is occurring around Bakhmut or Artyomovsk.
