Wagner Chief Says Russian Position at Bakhmut at Risk without Promised Ammunition

Ukrainian soldiers ride an infantry fighting vehicle along a road not far from Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on March 5, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
Ukrainian soldiers ride an infantry fighting vehicle along a road not far from Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on March 5, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
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Wagner Chief Says Russian Position at Bakhmut at Risk without Promised Ammunition

Ukrainian soldiers ride an infantry fighting vehicle along a road not far from Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on March 5, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
Ukrainian soldiers ride an infantry fighting vehicle along a road not far from Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on March 5, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary force warned that Russia's position around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was in peril unless his troops got ammunition, the latest sign of tension between the Kremlin and the private militia chief.

Ukrainian military officials and analysts also reported leaders of Russia's 155th Brigade fighting near the town of Vuhledar, south of Bakhmut, were resisting orders to attack after sustaining severe losses in attempts to capture it.

For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday said Russian forces had hit a command center of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment in southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. The ministry did not elaborate on the attack.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said Russia's front lines near Bakhmut could collapse if his forces did not receive the ammunition promised by Moscow in February.

"For now, we are trying to figure out the reason: is it just ordinary bureaucracy or a betrayal," Prigozhin, referring to the absence of ammunition, said in his press service Telegram channel on Sunday.

The mercenary chief regularly criticizes Russia's defense chiefs and top generals. Last month, he accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and others of "treason" for withholding supplies of munitions to his men.

In a nearly four-minute video published on the Wagner Orchestra Telegram channel on Saturday, Prigozhin said his troops were worried that the government wanted to set them up as possible scapegoats if Russia lost the war.

"If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse," Prigozhin said. "The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests."

'Defense is holding'

A Russian victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would give it the first major prize in a costly winter offensive, after it called up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year. Russia says it would be a stepping stone to completing the capture of the Donbas industrial region, one of its most important objectives.

Volodymyr Nazarenko, a commander of Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut, said that there had been no order to retreat and "the defense is holding" in grim conditions.

"The situation in Bakhmut and around it is very much hell-like, as it is on the entire eastern front," Nazarenko said in a video posted on Telegram.

Ukraine's military said early on Monday its forces had repelled 95 Russian attacks in the Bakhmut area over the previous day.

"The situation in Bakhmut can be described as critical," Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in a video commentary.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on a "special military operation" just over a year ago.

Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled and cities have been reduced to rubble but Ukrainian forces, with the help of Western weapons, have limited Russian advances to the east and south.

To the north of Bakhmut, Russian troops advanced towards the town of Bilohorivka, just inside the Luhansk region, and shelled several settlements in the direction of Kupiansk and Lyman, the Ukrainian military said.

To the south, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces made preparations for an offensive in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, shelling dozens of towns and villages including the city of Kherson, causing civilian casualties.

A woman and two children were killed by Russian mortar bombs in a village in Kherson region, the head of Ukraine's presidential office said.

Ukraine's air force spokesperson, Yuriy Ihnat, said 13 kamikaze drones had been shot down on Sunday night.

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region bordering Ukraine said one person was wounded by falling debris on Monday after Russian forces shot down three missiles near the town of Novy Oskol.

Belgorod borders Ukraine's Kharkiv region and has repeatedly come under fire since the beginning of Russia's invasion. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia.

'Refusing to proceed'

Near Vuhledar, southwest of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, Ukraine said senior officers of Russia's 155th Brigade, which Kyiv says suffered heavy recent losses, were refusing to obey orders to attack.

"The leaders of the brigade and senior officers are refusing to proceed with a new senseless attack as demanded by their unskilled commanders - to storm well-defended Ukrainian positions with little protection or preparation," Ukraine's military said in a statement.

Military analyst Zhdanov said two "Cossack" Russian units known as Steppe and Tiger had expressed frustration with their commanders and refused to take part in any new offensive on the hilltop town.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.

Russian Defense Minister Shoigu is on a rare visit to his forces in Ukraine, awarding medals and meeting commanders on the weekend. On Monday, he visited the eastern city of Mariupol, captured by Russian forces last year after a months-long siege.



Trump Aide Waltz Says US Needs Ukrainian Leader Who Wants Peace

 US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 21, 2025. (AFP)
US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Trump Aide Waltz Says US Needs Ukrainian Leader Who Wants Peace

 US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 21, 2025. (AFP)
US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 21, 2025. (AFP)

A top adviser to President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the United States needs a Ukrainian leader who is willing to secure a lasting peace with Russia but that it is not clear Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is prepared to do so.

Days after a contentious Oval Office exchange between Trump, Zelenskiy and Vice President JD Vance, White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said Washington wants to secure a permanent peace between Moscow and Kyiv that involves territorial concessions in exchange for European-led security guarantees.

Asked whether Trump wants Zelenskiy to resign, Waltz told CNN's "State of the Union" program: "We need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians and end this war."

"If it becomes apparent that President Zelenskiy's either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in his country, then I think we have a real issue on our hands," Waltz added.

House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson also suggested that a different leader might be necessary in Ukraine if Zelenskiy does not comply with US demands.

"Something has to change. Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that," the top congressional Republican told NBC's Meet the Press program.

The extraordinary Oval Office exchange on Friday put tensions between Zelenskiy and Trump on public display. As a result, an agreement between Ukraine and the United States to jointly develop Ukraine's natural resources was left unsigned and in limbo.

"It wasn't clear to us that President Zelenskiy was ready to negotiate and in good faith towards an end of this war," Waltz said.

On ABC's This Week program, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he has not spoken with Zelenskiy since Friday.

Rubio also said he has not spoken to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha since Trump and Zelenskiy clashed at the White House and failed to sign an expected minerals deal.

"We'll be ready to reengage when they're ready to make peace," Rubio said on the show.

US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, said on "This Week" that she was "appalled" by the clash in the Oval Office and that she met with Zelenskiy before he went to the White House on Friday and he had been excited to sign an expected minerals deal.

"There is still an opening here" for a peace deal, she said.