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12-03-2023
MOSCOW: Mercenary force boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said his Wagner private army has opened recruitment centres in 42 Russian cities as he seeks to replenish the army’s ranks after heavy losses in fighting for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
In an upbeat audio message on Friday, Prigozhin said new fighters were coming forward but gave no indication of the numbers involved. He also said ammunition supplies from the Russian army had improved but remained a concern.
“In spite of the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will go forward,” he said. “Despite the sticks in the wheels that are thrown at us at every step, we will overcome this together.”
Wagner mercenaries have been at the forefront of some of the fiercest fighting in Russia’s attempt to take control of Bakhmut, where the Ukrainian army is still holding out after more than seven months of warfare – a bloody campaign Prigozhin calls “the meat grinder”.
In a separate post on social media on Friday, Prigozhin said Ukraine was preparing a counteroffensive near Bakhmut, adding: “Of course we are doing everything we can to prevent this from happening.”
Ukraine has decided to fight on in the ruined Bakhmut because the battle has engaged some of Russia’s best units 
and worn them down ahead of Moscow’s planned spring counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak said on Friday.
“Russia has changed tactics,” Podolyak said in an interview published by Italy’s La Stampa newspaper.
“It has converged on Bakhmut with a large part of its trained military personnel, the remnants of its professional army, as well as the private companies,” he said.
“We, therefore, have two objectives: To reduce their capable personnel as much as possible and to fix them in a few key wearisome battles, to disrupt their offensive and concentrate our resources elsewhere for the spring counteroffensive. So, today Bakhmut is completely effective, even exceeding its key tasks.” (Int’l News Desk)
