The communication war has resumed around the fighting in Bakhmout. “In the legal sense, the city has been captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas”, assured on Telegram the head of Wagner, Evgueni Prigojine on the night of Sunday to Monday April 3. In reality, his troops claim the capture of the town hall of Bakhmout, which according to them constitutes the capture of the city. “Here is the Wagner private military company, here are the guys who took Bakhmout. From a legal point of view, she is ours,” Prigozhin said.
A video accompanying his message shows him waving a Russian flag with an inscription in honor of Vladlen Tatarsky, a Russian military blogger who was a fervent supporter of the offensive in Ukraine, killed Sunday by a bomb explosion in the historic center of Saint -Petersburg.
The Ukrainian general staff said the opposite, ensuring that it was still “holding” the city. “The enemy has not stopped its assault on Bakhmout. However, the Ukrainian defenders bravely hold the city, repelling numerous enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian general staff said on its Facebook page on Sunday evening.
Violent clashes in Bakhmout
“The enemy does not stop its assaults on Bakhmout, trying to take complete control of it. Our soldiers repelled more than 20 enemy attacks,” the General Staff continued on Facebook. Russian troops have advanced in recent months north and south of the city, cutting several Ukrainian supply routes and seizing its eastern part. On March 20, Yevgeny Prigojine claimed that Wagner controlled 70% of Bakhmout.
In his Sunday evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Bakhmout was difficult for his troops. About 27 kilometers from Bakhmout, in Kostiantynivka, a Russian bombardment on Sunday killed six people and injured 11, according to Ukrainian authorities. Police said Russia had carried out a “massive attack” in the morning, six S-300 and Hurricane missile strikes, hitting civilian residential areas.
Ukraine believes that the battle for Bakhmut is essential to contain Russian forces on the entire eastern front, even if analysts judge the strategic importance of the city limited. Due to the length of the battle and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, the city has become the symbol of the struggle between Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass. Russia “continues to concentrate the bulk of its efforts on the conduct of offensive actions in the sectors of Lyman, Bakhmout, Avdiïvka and Mariïnka”, noted in the evening the staff.
Arrest of a suspect in the attack that killed a famous military blogger
Russia accused Kiev on Monday of having, with the complicity of supporters of the imprisoned Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, orchestrated the attack which killed the day before in Saint Petersburg a famous blogger in favor of the military offensive in Ukraine.
On Sunday, a cafe in the historic center of the city was hit by “an explosive device”. “As a result of the incident, one person died. This is the military blogger Vladlen Tatarskiï” indicated the Russian Interior Ministry. According to some Russian media, the attack was aimed directly at the soldier. This Monday, the Russian authorities announced the arrest of a young woman, the main suspect in the attack. The investigators “arrested Daria Trepova, suspected of participation in the explosion at the café in Saint Petersburg”, indicated on Telegram the Investigative Committee of Russia, a powerful investigative office.
“I brought a statuette that exploded” in this cafe, said Daria Trepova, in a video published after her arrest by the Russian Interior Ministry. When asked by a police officer who gave her the bomb, she replied that she would explain that “later”.
Aged 40 and born in the Ukrainian Donbass, Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was a well-known figure in the military blogosphere in Russia, with more than half a million subscribers on his Telegram channel. A fervent defender of the invasion of Ukraine, Vladlen Tatarskiï has developed his community on Telegram, in particular by publishing, since the beginning of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, videos analyzing the situation on the ground and providing advice for the mobilized, according to the Tass agency. The Russian Foreign Ministry paid tribute to him on Sunday evening. Bloggers like Vladlen Tatarsky “are defenders of the truth,” Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram, adding that the lack of response from Western governments, “despite their concern for the well-being being journalists and the free press, says a lot”.
Putin creates a support fund for soldiers engaged in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday formalizing the creation of a special fund for assistance to soldiers engaged in Ukraine and their families, a new social measure announced by the Russian president in the midst of the conflict which has lasted for more than a year.
The Russian army has suffered heavy losses since the start of the offensive against its Ukrainian neighbor and following a series of military setbacks, Vladimir Putin mobilized from September 300,000 reservists, civilians therefore.
The decree to support the “Defenders of the Fatherland”, according to the official title, was published on the government information portal on Monday. According to this decree, in addition to the soldiers engaged, the wife or spouse and the children will also be supported by this special fund, the total amount of which has not been communicated.
The war caused 2.4 billion euros of destruction of heritage
The war in Ukraine has caused 2.4 billion euros in destruction to the country’s heritage and cultural sector and generated 13.9 billion euros in lost income in entertainment, art and tourism, has estimated Unesco on Monday.
Some 248 monuments were damaged in particular, some of which were completely destroyed, particularly in the East, we learned from this UN body based in Paris, whose director general Audrey Azoulay was in Ukraine on Monday. The Russian invasion also caused a collapse of parts of the Ukrainian economy related to culture, including “tourism, arts, sports, entertainment, cultural industry, cultural education”, estimated at 15, 1 billion dollars (13.9 billion euros) in losses, according to a UNESCO executive.
Nuclear weapons near the western Belarusian border
Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be moved “near the western borders” of Belarus with its NATO neighbors, Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov has said, the Associated Press reports. His comment follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statement regarding plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Russia’s neighbor and ally.
Belarus shares a 1,250 kilometer border with NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Putin has since said the construction of tactical nuclear weapons storage facilities in Belarus will be completed by July 1 and added that Russia has helped upgrade Belarusian warplanes to make them capable of carrying weapons. nuclear. The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would bring them closer to potential targets in Ukraine and NATO members in Eastern and Central Europe.
German Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck arrived in Kiev on Monday morning for his first trip to the Ukrainian capital since the start of the Russian offensive, the German Economy Ministry said.
German Vice-Chancellor visits Kyiv
Robert Habeck, also Minister of the Climate, is accompanied by several representatives of the economic world, including the boss of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), specified several German media. According to the newspaper Picture, Robert Habeck declared on his arrival in kyiv that his visit is a sign “that we believe that (Ukraine) will be victorious, that it will be rebuilt”. Ukraine will be “a major economic partner in the future”, declared Robert Habeck.
The vice-chancellor, from the environmentalist party, has long supported the supply of weapons, in particular heavy tanks, to kyiv when the head of government Olaf Scholz has long been hesitant.