Latest in Ukraine: Wagner Group Chief Says It’s Time for ‘Firm End’ to War

Ukrainian soldiers evacuate parts of Bakhmut as fighting there intensifies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a bill to make it easier to mobilize Russians into the military.
China has promised not to sell weapons to either Ukraine or Russia, The Associated Press reports.
Russian forces have brought large amounts of provisions and water to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and may barricade a skeleton staff inside, says Kyiv’s state atomic agency, Energoatom.

The head of the Wagner Group wants Russia to get out of Ukraine. The time has come for a “firm end” to the war in Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin posted on Telegram on Friday. He said Russian “government and society now need a firm end” to the war in Ukraine.

He said, “Russia has achieved the results it wanted” and has “eradicated most of active male population of Ukraine and intimidate the rest,” failing to mention any of Ukraine’s triumphs over Russia.

Prigozhin said Russia forces should now “hold on for dear life to the territories we already have.”

The Wagner Group has provided mercenaries for Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.  

Meanwhile, At least eight people were killed and 21 were wounded Friday in a Russian airstrike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, northwest of Bakhmut.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told national television that seven missiles had been fired on the city. According to Ukrainian national police, S-300 missiles struck 10 apartment buildings and other sites. The top two floors of a five-story building collapsed after the strike. Rescue teams were looking for survivors.

A child was pulled alive from the rubble but died on the way to a hospital, Daria Zarivna, a senior official in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said. Kyrylenko also said people were believed to be trapped under the debris.

“Not a single hour of this week before Orthodox Easter passed without murders and terror,” Zelenskyy tweeted Friday. “This is an evil state, and it will lose. To win is our duty to humanity as such. And we will win!” he said.

Later, in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that “for every Russian attack on our cities and villages, on our positions, for every killing of Ukrainians, the occupier must suffer the most tangible losses.”

Russian conscription law

The latest strikes come as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill Friday allowing authorities to issue electronic conscription notices. The law has raised concern that Russia is planning another mobilization drive.

Previously, Russian law required an in-person delivery of conscription notices, which led some Russians to avoid the draft by staying away from their homes.

Under the new law, the conscription notices are considered valid as soon as they are sent electronically. The law also prohibits those who are conscripted from leaving the country and allows authorities to suspend the drivers’ licenses of conscripts who fail to report for duty.

In September, Putin announced the mobilization of about 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine. The Associated Press reports the order is estimated to have prompted an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russian men.

Bakhmut withdrawal

In the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, fighting continues to intensify. According to Reuters, analysts said Friday that Ukrainian forces there were trying to push back against a coordinated three-pronged attack by the Kremlin’s forces and against Russian attempts to intercept supplies to Ukrainian soldiers.

In its Friday intelligence update, the British Ministry of Defense wrote that Ukrainian troops had been forced to withdraw from parts of Bakhmut after a renewed Russian assault on the ravaged city. According to the update, “Russia has re-energized its assault on the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut as forces of the Russian MoD [Ministry of Defense] and Wagner Group have improved co-operation.”

Ukrainian officials say Russia has been drawing down troops from other areas on the front for a major push on Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to capture for nine months to regain the momentum of the all-out invasion it launched more than a year ago.

“The enemy is using its most professional units there and resorting to a significant amount of artillery and aviation,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“Every day, the enemy carries out in Bakhmut from 40 to 50 storming operations and 500 shelling episodes,” she said. The British intelligence update said Ukraine still held western districts of the town but had been subjected to intense Russian artillery fire the previous two days.

“Ukrainian forces face significant resupply issues but have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to concede,” it said.

China weapons

In other key developments, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Friday his country would not sell weapons to Russia or Ukraine. His pledge was a response to Western concerns that Beijing could assist Russia militarily.

China has asserted its neutrality in the conflict, while Western nations have imposed sanctions against Moscow.

Qin added that China would also regulate the export of items with dual civilian and military use.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces say they are discovering a growing number of Chinese components in Russian weaponry used in Ukraine. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, senior adviser to Zelenskyy, told Reuters via a video call that in “the weapons recovered from the battlefield, we continue to find different electronics.”

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Russian forces have brought large amounts of provisions and water supplies to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which they captured in southeastern Ukraine after invading last year, Kyiv’s state atomic agency, Energoatom, said Friday.

The agency said this activity might indicate Russia was preparing to hold employees inside because of a dire shortage of qualified staff at Europe’s largest nuclear plant and in anticipation of Ukraine’s anticipated counteroffensive.

“Given the intense shortage of nuclear specialists needed to operate the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and fearing a Ukrainian offensive, the [Russians] are preparing for the long-term holding of ZNPP employees as hostages,” Energoatom said.

“The invaders have already brought a lot of provisions and water to the station,” the agency added in a statement. “The occupiers will probably not allow the station staff to leave after one of the regular work shifts, forcibly blocking them at the ZNPP,” it said.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Zelenskyy soldier beheading

In a tweet Friday, Zelenskyy thanked British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for condemning the “inhumane execution” of a Ukrainian soldier. “Together we must stop the aggressor & put an end to terror,” he said.

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday opened an investigation into a video on social media purportedly showing one of Kyiv’s soldiers being beheaded.

News agencies could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video. Zelenskyy said that the video showed the “execution of a Ukrainian captive” and that “everyone must react. Do not expect that it will be forgotten that time will pass.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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