Underground city in the Ukrainian Bakhmut
2023.01.07 13:24
Underground city in the Ukrainian Bakhmut
Budrigannews.com – On Saturday, the founder of Russia’s most well-known mercenary group stated that he wanted his forces and the regular Russian army to take the small city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine because it had “underground cities” that could hold troops and tanks.
Some Western military analysts have been perplexed by Russia’s relentless effort to capture Bakhmut over the course of more than five months. They claim that Russia has suffered significant losses and that Ukraine has constructed defensive lines to retreat nearby, making it unlikely that Russia will win there.
On Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group in Russia that is participating in the battle of Bakhmut, elaborated on the reasons he believed its capture would be significant.
“The system of Soledar and Bakhmut mines, which is actually a network of underground cities, is the icing on the cake. It can hold a large group of people at a depth of 80 to 100 meters, and it can also move tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
Given Wagner’s role in the fighting in Bakhmut, Prigozhin claimed that weapons had been stored in the underground complexes since World War I. This would likely help Prigozhin’s political standing in Moscow.
His remarks were in reference to the vast salt and other mines in the area, which have more than 100 miles of tunnels and a huge underground room that has previously played host to football games and concerts of classical music in more peaceful times.
On Thursday, a representative of the White House stated that Washington was of the opinion that Prigozhin wanted to take control of the salt and gypsum mines in the region for commercial reasons. It didn’t say anything about their alleged use as underground military units.
Prigozhin, who is approved in the West, referred to Bakhmut as “a serious logistics center” with unique defensive fortifications as one of the other advantages of taking it.
In spite of a self-declared Russian ceasefire to commemorate Orthodox Christmas, which Kyiv rejected as a ploy, shellfire echoed throughout Bakhmut’s nearly deserted streets on Saturday. He made his remarks on the Telegram channel of his press service.
The most intense fighting in Ukraine is taking place in Bakhmut, which Russia calls Artyomovsk. Prigozhin made his remarks as another Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel claimed that Russia had captured a strategically important settlement on the outskirts of Bakhmut.
Early on Saturday, the Russian defense ministry reported intense fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Despite what he described as fierce Russian assaults, a spokesman for the Ukrainian defense ministry stated that the town of Soledar, which is close to Bakhmut and is home to a salt mine, was still under Ukrainian control.
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