Since the start of the conflict, at least 460 children have been killed and more than 16,000 have been forcibly transferred to Russia.

Russian soldiers are now one kilometer from the center of Baghmouth, a town that Moscow troops have been trying to take since the summer, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, announced on Saturday.

“It is the building of the municipal administration, the administrative center of the city.”He said, pointing from the roof of one building to another located in what he called Bakhmout. “It is 1.2 kilometers away”He said in a video broadcast by his company Concord’s press service. “This area, the fighting is going on. »

These comments cannot be verified by an independent source in the immediate future. “The most important thing is to get the right amount of ammo and move forward”He hammers back, while he is in open conflict with the Russian military line, other things about getting ammunition, essential, according to him, to continue the attack on Bakhmout.

Mr. Prigozhin’s men were at the forefront of the battle for Bagmouth, which caused heavy casualties on both sides. The Russians have been trying for weeks to encircle the city, home to about 70,000 people before the conflict, and have succeeded in cutting off several important roads for supplies to Ukrainian soldiers.

While observers doubt the strategic importance of Baghmoud, the battle – the longest since the Russian offensive began in more than a year – has symbolic value for both Kiev and Moscow, which would prefer a later victory. Many humiliating reversals. The Wagner Group boss also announced on Friday that he would open fifty-eight recruitment centers in forty-two Russian cities to regroup his troops, which are suffering heavy losses in eastern Ukraine.