The noose is tightening on Bakhmout. On Friday February 24, the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner said his troops had taken the Ukrainian town of Berkhivka, just north of Bakhmout, a key city that Moscow has been seeking to conquer for several months. An announcement that comes a year to the day after the start of the conflict. The village of Berkhivka, called Berkhovka in Russian, “is completely under our control. Wagner’s units control the entirety of Berkhovka,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a brief statement released by his press service.
Agence France-Presse could not independently verify this claim, which comes one year to the day after the launch of the Russian offensive against Ukraine. For more than six months, the Wagner group and the Russian army have been trying to capture Bakhmout, in eastern Ukraine, a city of disputed strategic importance but which has gained great symbolic importance due to the duration of the fighting and the heavy losses suffered by both sides.
Russian forces have been trying for several weeks to encircle Bakhmout and have succeeded in cutting off several important supply routes for Ukrainian troops. If the capture of Berkhivka by Wagner were confirmed, it would mean that the Russian forces have begun to close from the north the pincers in which they are trying to confine Bakhmout.
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