NATO’s Secretary General says the city of Bakhmut could fall to the Russian Wagner Group within days after the group’s founder claimed it had made progress controlling the eastern part of the city.

Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose troops have spearheaded the fight in Bakhmut, said they have taken full control of all districts east of the Bakhmutka River that crosses the city. The city’s center lies west of the river.

Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials commented on Prigozhin’s claim. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that closely monitors the fighting, said Russian forces were likely in control in the areas cited by Prigozhin following a Ukrainian withdrawal.

That was followed by a statement from Jens Stoltenberg:

📝NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the Bakhmut could fall "in the coming days".

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Wednesday that the embattled frontline town of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, could come under Russian control. pic.twitter.com/lkuY27tlOv

— 🌐World News 24 🌍🌎🌏 (@DailyWorld24) March 8, 2023

There’s a much more upbeat assessment from the NY Times in which Ukrainians claim Bakhmut will be the Wagner Group’s last stand.

Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been forced to use more of its professional recruits in Bakhmut to replace its depleted supply of enlisted prisoners, who are perishing by the thousands in the longest battle of the war, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.

The claim suggested that Ukraine sees an opportunity, despite the heavy casualties it has suffered in the eastern city, to exhaust Wagner’s nearly suicidal prisoner assaults, which Ukraine’s commanders regard as one of Russia’s most effective tactics.

“This is their last stand,” Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told Radio Liberty in an interview, referring to Wagner’s forces in Bakhmut, where Russia and Ukraine’s vicious, monthslong struggle has left thousands of soldiers dead and the city in rubble…

Some analysts say that if Ukraine can eliminate Russia’s prisoner soldiers in Bakhmut, they will not have to face their attack waves elsewhere. The number of “Russian convict recruits suitable for combat is not limitless,” the Institute for the Study of War, a research group in Washington, said in a communiqué this week. The group echoed Ukraine’s assessment that Wagner units were shifting toward higher-quality special forces because of the high losses suffered by prison recruits.

That may be accurate but it also seems a bit optimistic. Ukrainian fighters are already surrounded on three sides and Russia is shelling the road out of town. President Zelensky told CNN yesterday that if Russia isn’t stopped at Bakhmut they can move west from there.

“This is tactical for us,” Zelensky said, insisting that Kyiv’s military brass is united in prolonging its defense of the city after weeks of Russian attacks left it on the cusp of falling to Moscow’s troops.

“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview from Kyiv. “That’s why our guys are standing there.”

He also suggested a win in Bakhmut would be socially beneficial for Putin and Russia.

Zelensky said his motivations to keep the city are “so different” to Russia’s objectives. “We understand what Russia wants to achieve there. Russia needs at least some victory – a small victory – even by ruining everything in Bakhmut, just killing every civilian there,” Zelensky said.

He said that if Russia is able to “put their little flag” on top of Bakhmut, it would help “mobilize their society in order to create this idea they’re such a powerful army.”

He’s probably right about that. Russia has suffered a lot of losses over the past year, some of them humiliating. At this point, any win will be trumpeted as a major victory. Meanwhile, the word from the US defense secretary (echoed by Jens Stoltenberg above) is that Russia has lost so many men trying to claim Bakhmut that even a victory represents a loss. That may even be true but it won’t matter to the propagandists on Russian television.

Speaking of Russian TV, here’s a recent installment where a Russian professor argues that Ukrainians are animals.

During Vladimir Solovyov's show on Russian state TV, a Professor argued that Ukrainians are animals and that should determine Russia's future course of action. When Russians massacre Ukrainian civilians and POWs, this is how they justify it.https://t.co/2LT0oD2L1l

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) March 8, 2023