On 20 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, posted a video on social media claiming that he had captured Bakhmut. However, Ukraine then rejected this claim.
According to the BBC report, Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the army. At the same time, Ukraine’s President Zelensky said – nothing is left there, the city is completely destroyed.
Since August 2022, the city had been under fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, which had intensified over the past 3 months.
According to the New York Times report, Russia has captured most of the Black Sea trade route. In addition, since the beginning of the war, Russia has occupied 18% of Ukraine’s land.
6 major cities of Ukraine – Severodonetsk, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Mariupol, and Melitopol are located on this land. These cities control the economy of Ukraine. At the same time, Bakhmut is the 7th city that Russia has occupied.