The head of the Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has threatened to withdraw his troops from the embattled metropolis of Bakhmut in Ukraine amid excessive casualty charges, whereas a gas depot on Crimea caught hearth after a possible drone assault.
“Every day we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home,” Prigozhin stated in an interview with Russian navy blogger Semyon Pegov printed on Saturday.
Losses had been 5 occasions larger than mandatory due to the shortage of artillery ammunition, Prigozhin stated.
The Wagner chief stated he has written to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu asking for provides as quickly as potential. “If the ammunition deficit is not replenished, we are forced – in order not to run like cowardly rats afterwards – to either withdraw or die,” the 61-year-old asserted.
Prigozhin stated he would in all probability be pressured to withdraw a few of his troops, however warned that this is able to imply that the entrance would collapse elsewhere.
There has been preventing over Bakhmut in jap Ukraine for months. Casualties are excessive on each side. The Ukrainian defenders management solely a small space within the west of town.
Earlier within the day, a gas tank caught hearth within the Crimean port metropolis of Sevastopol following what was thought to have been a drone assault, the Russian-installed Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram, in keeping with Russia’s TASS news company.
Ukrainian navy intelligence stated later that 10 oil tanks had been destroyed, with out stating that Kiev had assumed accountability for the assault, nevertheless. At the identical time, authority spokesman Andriy Yusov pressured that such explosions will proceed.
The complete quantity of the tanks had been “about 40,000 tons,” stated Yusov. “This is God’s punishment especially for the killed citizens in Uman, among whom are five children,” he stated, referring to a Russian missile assault within the central Ukrainian metropolis the day earlier than.
According to him, the gas depot is utilized by the Russian Black Sea Fleet stationed in Crimea.
Russia’s Razvozhayev stated an space of 1,000 sq. metres had been engulfed in flames.
There was no instant info on casualties.
Razvozhayev stated later that the fireplace triggered “the most severe of all possible” alarm ranges – stage 4. Civilian infrastructure was not threatened, he wrote on Telegram.
Eighteen firefighting models had been being deployed to struggle the fireplace, Razvozhayev wrote. Due to the scale of the blaze, he stated it may take a number of hours to extinguish.
“The fire does not affect fuel supplies for Sevastopol. These reserves were not used for petrol station deliveries,” he wrote – suggesting that the gas depot was getting used for navy functions.
Ukraine has repeatedly declared its intention to retake the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 to worldwide outcry.
Violent drone incidents have occurred a number of occasions there in the midst of Russia’s present 14-month-old all-out invasion, typically inflicting extreme injury, accidents and deaths.
Meanwhile on the mainland, the most recent Russian missile strikes that reportedly killed at the very least 25 civilians in Ukraine point out a brand new and extra indiscriminate offensive technique, in keeping with British intelligence businesses.
“The wave involved fewer missiles than those over the winter and was unlikely to have been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” the Ministry of Defence in London tweeted on Saturday.
There was a practical risk that Russia had tried on Friday to assault Ukrainian reserve models and just lately delivered navy provides, in keeping with the ministry’s newest intelligence replace.
In doing so, Russia was working an “inefficient targeting process” and “prioritising perceived military necessity over preventing collateral damage, including civilian deaths,” it added.
The assault was the biggest use of cruise missiles since early March and indicated “a departure in Russia’s use of long-range strikes.”
Fewer missiles had been used than within the winter, when Russia primarily focused Ukrainian infrastructure, in keeping with the ministry, which has printed each day intelligence updates on the conflict’s progress since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Ukrainian navy gave the entire variety of missiles fired in a single day at Ukraine as 23, of which 21 had been shot down, together with two drones.
Ten residential blocks had been hit within the central metropolis of Uman within the Cherkasy area, whereas a lady and youngster additionally reportedly died within the jap metropolis of Dnipro throughout night-time shelling.
“The country-invader never ceases to prove that the main goal of this war is terror and the destruction of Ukrainians and everything Ukrainian,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
The Russian Defence Ministry, in the meantime, wrote on Telegram: “Safely on target.”
Source: www.anews.com.tr
