| Wagner says it is leaving Bakhmut |
| Days after declaring victory in Bakhmut, the Wagner private military company said that it was turning the Ukrainian city over to the Russian Army, which must now try to hold on to it without the help of the brutal mercenary force on which it has grown dependent. |
| A Wagner withdrawal could open a new phase of the monthslong struggle for Bakhmut, testing whether the Russian Army can hold the hard-won ground against Ukrainian forces that have advanced on the city’s outskirts and are preparing to launch a broader counteroffensive. |
| Ukraine has conceded that despite the firepower it devoted to hold Bakhmut, where tens of thousands are believed to have died, Russia now controls nearly the entire city. Ukraine says its forces are shifting their focus to make it difficult for Russia to hold Bakhmut or move deeper into the country. |
| Footage: Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, suggested that Russia’s regular soldiers could expect no more help from the group in Bakhmut. In a three-minute video, Prigozhin is shown visiting what he says are Wagner positions in the city and telling his fighters to hand them over to Russian troops. “Leave them soap, but take away your toothbrushes,” he says. |
| In other news from the war: |
| Russia is using Soviet-era bombs on Ukraine. They are proving much harder to shoot down than faster, modern missiles, which Ukrainians have become adept at intercepting.See a photographic chronicle of the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. |
