brushed aside claims<\/a> by the head of Russia\u2019s Wagner mercenary force that he will withdraw his fighters from the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, saying the mercenaries were holding firm and receiving reinforcements.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUkraine\u2019s military said on Friday that Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions in Bakhmut with the likely intention to try and seize the destroyed city before Russia marks the Soviet Union\u2019s victory in World War II on May 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are now seeing them pulling (fighters) from the entire offensive line where the Wagner fighters were, they are pulling (them) to the Bakhmut direction,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Ukrainian television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a video statement, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said his men had been starved of ammunition by Russia\u2019s defence ministry and that he would withdraw his men and expected the Russian army to take their place in Bakhmut by May 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition,\u201d Prigozhin said in the video accompanying a written withdrawal announcement addressed to the head of the Russian general staff, the defence ministry and President Vladimir Putin as supreme commander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement said \u201cbureaucrats\u201d had held back supplies despite knowing that Wagner\u2019s target date to capture the city was May 9 when Moscow holds its Victory Day parade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Al Jazeera News: The Ukrainian military has brushed aside claims by the head of Russia\u2019s Wagner mercenary force that he will withdraw his fighters from the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, saying the mercenaries were holding firm and receiving reinforcements. Ukraine\u2019s military said on Friday that Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions in Bakhmut with the likely intention to try and seize the destroyed city before Russia marks the Soviet Union\u2019s victory in World War II on May 9. \u201cWe are now seeing them pulling (fighters) from the entire offensive line where the Wagner fighters were, they are pulling… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31819,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31817\/revisions\/31819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}