Putin using Bakhmut to ruin Wagner, say experts

Russia’s months-long battle to capture the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is being used by the Kremlin to largely destroy” the private Wagner Group and put its chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in his place”, according to experts monitoring the conflict.

- ARPAN RAI

Analysts have suggested an ulterior motive to the Russian leadership's determination to keep throwing mercenary units into the bloody siege, with disagreements over Ukraine increasingly driving a wedge between Vladimir Putin and his long-time ally.

The Wagner Group has trained and deployed thousands of convicted criminals in Ukraine - promised their freedom if they can survive six months on the frontline - ever since the Russian president launched his full-scale invasion of the former Soviet nation.

And the mercenary group has been at the forefront of Mr Putin's initiative to seize Bakhmut, a small town known for its salt mines that had already been battered by the initial stages of the war.

Mr Prigozhin, a former prisoner himself, triumphantly declared in early March from the roof of what appeared to be a bunker that his forces had encircled the city from almost all directions barring one, leaving the Ukrainians with no option but to withdraw.