The Ministry of Defense of Moscow has denied that the Ukrainian army has broken through the front line at various points, as claimed by several sources on Telegram, claiming that the situation on the ground is under control. The reference is to what many Russian military bloggers have written, according to which Kiev’s forces had advanced north and south of the city of Bakhmut, which has been under siege for months in eastern Ukraine. According to some, the long-awaited spring counter-offensive would therefore have begun, of which the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky had spoken just yesterday, underlining that ”more time” would be needed.
In a post, the Russian Defense Ministry wrote that “the statements spread by individual Telegram channels about ‘defense breakthroughs’ in different areas along the line of military contact do not correspond to reality”. And again: ”the general situation in the area of the special military operation is under control”.
Russian Telegram channels documenting and supporting the warand for this reason they are generically referred to as ‘Z’, however, they began to write that the Ukrainian counter-offensive would begin. Blogger Evgeny Poddubny claims that Kiev forces “started an operation to encircle” Russian forces near Bakhmut and managed to break the Russian front in the Soledar area. Alexander Kots announces that tanks have been spotted on the road from Kharkiv to the Russian border, according to him, to force an extension of Russian resources used to “stop the threat in the Belgorod region”. Poddubny also reports Ukrainian military activity near Kharkiv. The former ‘defence minister’ of the Republic of Donetsk Igor Strelkov, specifies that at the moment we are dealing with “only local attacks, even if successful ones”.
The leader and founder of the Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin in the meantime, he wrote to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to invite him to go to Bakhmut so that he can ”see with his own eyes” what is happening and ”assess the situation” on the ground.
“Given the difficult operational situation in the area, but also the many years of experience we have in fighting, I ask you to come” to Bakhmut which “is under the control of the paramilitary forces of the Russian Federation” for “95 per cent ”. At the same time, Prigozhin said that ”the enemy has successfully launched a series of counterattack actions”, reiterating that the ”offensive” of the Wagner group for the ”complete liberation” of Bakhmut continues.
Meanwhile one “strong explosion” was felt this morning in Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region. Mayor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram saying that “a strong explosion occurred in Melitopol. It rang right in the city center”.
