Mercenaries from the Wagner group have begun handing over the east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to the regular Russian army and will leave the city by next week, the group’s founder said.
But in an escalation of his feud with the professional Russian military, Yevgeny Prigozhin added that he would leave behind two visibly unfit fighters to rescue the army when they got into difficulty.
“We are withdrawing units from Bakhmut today. We are handing over positions to the military, ammunition and everything,” Mr Prigozhin said in a video purportedly filmed in Bakhmut on Thursday morning. “We pull back, we rest, we prepare and then we will get new tasks.
“Here’s two guys we are leaving for the army. This is Biber and this is Dolik,” he said, presenting one very elderly and one extremely young fighter. “As soon as the army find things difficult, they’ll stand in the way of the Ukrainian army.
“Be nice to the soldiers, lads,” he added, in what was clearly intended as a joke at the army’s expense.
Mr Prigozhin was filmed telling mercenaries that the withdrawal would be complete by June 1.
There was no immediate confirmation. Ukrainian officials have previously described Mr Prigozhin’s frequent public announcements as misinformation.
Russia claimed victory in Bakhmut last week, marking the end of a nine-month battle that left the city in ruins and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Ukraine denies it has lost the city and claims to be maintaining a foothold in one outlying district.
It says it is also continuing counter-attacks on the Russian flanks to the north and south of the town.
Mr Prigozhin said Wagner played the key role in Russia’s capture of the city.
He has often used the mercenary group’s triumphs as leverage in a public feud with Sergei Shoigu, the head of the Ministry of Defence.
He has since admitted that 10,000 prisoners he recruited to fight there were killed in the course of the battle.
Ukraine said it secured the release of 106 of its soldiers in a prisoner swap near Bakhmut on Thursday.
The soldiers, including eight officers, were captured fighting in the defence of the city. There was no immediate information about the prisoners Russia received in exchange.
“Every one of them is a hero of our state. Many of the ones we are returning from captivity were considered missing. The relatives of these people have gone through a difficult time,” said Andriy Yermak, the head of President Zelensky’s office.
Meanwhile, Russia moved ahead on Thursday with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, signing a deal with its ally about the storage of the warheads at a special facility that should be finished in little more than a month.
The plan for the nuclear deployment, Moscow‘s first outside Russian borders since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, was announced by Putin in an interview with state television on Thursday.
“The collective West is essentially waging an undeclared war against our countries,” Mr Shoigu said at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk, according to Russia’s defence ministry.