Russia declares full control of Artyomovsk in Donetsk

Moscow-. The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, reports that today, Russian forces have fully taken control of the city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut for Ukrainians) in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

As reported by Prigozhin on his Telegram channel, Artiomovsk has fallen under the full control of the assault groups of the Russian army, so that from May 25, Wagner units will hand over control of the city to the regular members of the Armed Forces.

Bakhmut, known for decades as Artiomovsk and still called that in Russia, has been the epicenter of bloody fighting for months because of its importance in supplying Ukrainian forces in the Donbass.

Artiomovsk is located north of the city of Gorlovka and only 50 kilometers from Donetsk, the capital of the homonymous region.

Since February 24, 2022, Russia has been carrying out a special military operation in eastern Ukraine that, according to President Vladimir Putin, seeks to disarm, discredit the neighboring country and prevent attacks by the Kiev regime against the civilian population of the people’s republics. From Luhansk and Donetsk.

During the military operation, Russian troops took control of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, which became part of the territory of the Russian Federation, along with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics.

At that time, the West ignored Moscow’s proposals to form a common security space in Europe and prevent the progress of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the borders with the Eurasian giant, which it saw as a direct threat to its national security.