{"id":12405,"date":"2023-04-16T20:56:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T20:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/russia-says-wagner-fighters\/"},"modified":"2023-04-16T20:59:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T20:59:29","slug":"russia-says-wagner-fighters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/russia-says-wagner-fighters\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia says Wagner fighters take two more blocks in battered Bakhmut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211;     Russia said on Sunday that Wagner mercenary units supported by airborne troops had captured two more city blocks in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, target of a major offensive by Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Wagner has spearheaded Russia&#8217;s attempt to take Bakhmut since last summer in what has been the longest and deadliest battle of the war for both sides.<\/p>\n<p>Russia&#8217;s defence ministry said Wagner assault squads had taken two blocks in the northwestern and southeastern parts of Bakhmut, which has largely been destroyed in the fighting.<\/p>\n<p>Russian army paratroop units were supporting Wagner by holding back Ukrainian forces on the flanks, it added.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters could not independently verify Russia&#8217;s claim, which Kyiv did not directly address.<\/p>\n<p>Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine&#8217;s eastern military command, said Wagner troops were acting as a battering ram and attacking dozens of times a day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The enemy continued to attack our positions with satanic zeal,&#8221; he told the Ukrainian parliament&#8217;s television channel.<\/p>\n<p>Britain said in an intelligence update on Friday that Ukrainian troops had been forced to withdraw from some territory in the city in the face of a renewed Russian assault.   <\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by David Goodman, David Ljunggren and Sandra Maler)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/russia-says-wagner-fighters\/drone-footage-of-bakhmut-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3F08S-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3F08S-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211; Russia said on Sunday that Wagner mercenary units supported by airborne troops had captured two more city blocks in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, target of a major offensive by Moscow. Wagner has spearheaded Russia&#8217;s attempt to take Bakhmut since last summer in what has been the longest and deadliest battle of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-top-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3F08S-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12407,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405\/revisions\/12407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}