Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a well known Putin ally and the boss of Russia‘s Wagner mercenary group has said it could take two years for Moscow to seize the whole of two eastern Ukrainian regions whose capture it has stated as a key goal of the war.
Speaking to a Russian blogger, Prigozhin said his understanding of Russia’s plan was that it needed to fully control the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that Moscow last year claimed as ‘republics’ of Russia, in a move condemned by the United Nations as illegal.
Doing so would take ‘about one and half to two more years of work,’ Yevgeny said. Guardian reports.
‘As far as I understand, we need to close off the Donetsk and Luhansk republics and in principle that will suit everyone for now,’ he told Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov.
‘If we have to get to the Dnipro, then it will take about three years,’ Prigozhin added, referring to a larger area that would extend to the vast Dnipro River that runs roughly north to south, bisecting Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s comments suggest Moscow is preparing for a long conflict, as Volodymyr Zelenskiy renews appeal for fighter jets.
In the rare interview, Prigozhin claimed that Wagner troops were making gradual progress in Bakhmut, but acknowledged that Russian solders had not yet been able to capture it in some of the fiercest fighting since the start of the war.
‘It is probably too early to say that we are close. There are many roads out and fewer roads in. Ukrainian troops are well trained and, like any large city, it is impossible to capture it from head-on. We are managing very well.
‘First, we have to quietly take [Bakhmut] and then we can say loud and clear that we have taken it,’ Prigozhin said.
Western officials have estimated that Wagner has about 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine.
They estimate about 40,000 of them are convicts recruited from Russian prisons who were thrown into the frontline and ordered to attack the enemy with minimal training.
But on Friday Wagner said it was no longer recruiting from prisons.
