The Armed Forces of Ukraine regained part of the occupied territories near Bakhmut during the counteroffensive, said Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner PMC.
According to him, Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu regrouped and deployed troops along the Berkhovka reservoir to protect the Berkhovka settlement. “Because it’s a very advantageous position. So profitable that they just bargained for them all. Now part of the settlement of Berkhovka has already been lost, the troops are slowly draping. A shame!” Prigogine said .
The head of the PMC called on Gerasimov and Shoigu to come to the front in order to “raise the army” and lead them forward. “Come on, you can! And if you can’t, die a hero,” he concluded.
Russian troops withdrew from Berkhovka in May. Then the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation explained this by regrouping in order to take more advantageous frontiers “taking into account the favorable conditions of the Berkhovsky reservoir.”
Prigozhin called this a lie, accusing the units of the Ministry of Defense of fleeing from the flanks. According to him, PMC “Wagner” took seven months to occupy them. Moreover, with the return of these positions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine discovered the opportunity to take Bakhmut into the ring, Prigogine warned.
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar confirmed the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut. “In the city of Bakhmut, the situation is conditionally stable,” she said. According to her, the Russian army was unable to reach the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, was exhausted and could not attack.
In turn, the commander of the ground forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky announced the “movement forward” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Bakhmut direction and the destruction of Russian positions.
On the night of June 5, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the start of a “large-scale offensive” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the South-Donetsk direction. The department emphasized that “the enemy did not achieve his tasks.” But Russian military correspondents claim that the Ukrainian army is “accompanied by some success”, and the overall situation is becoming “worrisome”.
According to the Komsomolskaya Pravda military correspondent Alexander Kots, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are attacking south-west of Bakhmut and hitting Soledar with artillery. As military correspondent Semyon Pegov’s WarGonzo channel notes , in this area the Armed Forces of Ukraine are still attacking without success.
The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not comment on the information about the counteroffensive, calling Moscow’s reports “information and psychological operations” that are aimed at demoralizing the Ukrainians. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov on Twitter the day before quoted the Depeche Mode song Enjoy the Silence: “Words are very unnecessary They can only do harm” (Words are not needed, they can only do harm).
Source: The Moscow Times