Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin shows then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin his school lunch factory outside Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2010. Prigozhin is nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because his company Concord serves the Kremlin.
Alexey Druzhinin | afp | beautiful pictures
The owner of the private military contractor Wagner Corporation Russia actively involved in the war in Ukraine has predicted that the war could drag on for many years.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview published late Friday that Russia could take 18 months to 2 years to secure full control of the Donbas industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine. He added that the war could continue for three years if Moscow decides to occupy larger territories east of the Dnieper River.
Statement by Prigozhin, a millionaire with close ties to the Russian President Putin and was dubbed “Putin’s chef” because of lucrative food supply contracts to the Kremlin, marking an acknowledgment of the difficulties the Kremlin faced during the campaign, which was originally planned. will end within weeks when Russian troops invade Ukraine on 24 February.
Russia suffered a series of humiliating defeats in the fall when the Ukrainian army launched successful counterattacks to regain large swaths of territory to the east and south. The Kremlin has avoided giving a forecast for how long the fighting could continue, saying that what it calls a “special military operation” will continue until its objectives are accomplished.
Russian forces have concentrated on Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which make up the Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Prigozhin said that Wagner Group mercenaries are continuing fierce battles for control of the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. He acknowledged that the Ukrainian army was resisting fiercely.
As the Russian military stepped up its attacks in the Donbas, Moscow also sought to demoralize the Ukrainians by leaving them without water and heat during the harsh winter.
On Friday, Russia launched its 14th major attack on Ukraine’s energy facilities and other critical infrastructure. High voltage infrastructure was affected in the eastern, western and southern regions, resulting in power outages in some areas.
Ukraine’s energy company, Ukrenergo, on Saturday said the situation was “difficult but manageable”, adding that it involved redundancy to maintain power supplies but noted that Power distribution will continue in some areas.
Ukraine’s military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said that Russian forces had launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and 7 Shahed drones between late Thursday and midday on Friday. The time added that the Ukrainian air defenses shot down 61 cruise missiles and 5 drones.
Ukrainian authorities reported more killer drone attacks later on Friday. The Ukrainian Air Force said the army shot down 20 Shahed drones in the evening.
Late on Friday, Russian military bloggers and several Ukrainian news outlets posted a video showing a sea drone strike on a strategic railway bridge in the Odesa region. The grainy video shows a fast-moving object approaching the bridge in Zatoka, about 50 kilometers southwest of Odesa, and exploding in a powerful explosion.
The authenticity of the video cannot be verified. The Ukrainian military did not comment on the attack and Serhii Bratchuk, a spokesman for the regional government, would not confirm the drone strike when he spoke on television on Saturday.
The bridge, the target of Russian missile attacks at the beginning of the war, serves as a railway link to Romania, the main route for Western arms supplies.
