Ukraine War | Prigozhin apparently hands over Bakhmut to Putin’s “bloodhound” – the night at a glance

Prigozhin’s mercenaries are withdrawing from Bakhmut – the Chechen leader is to take over. After the attack on a Russian writer, Russia blames Ukraine. The latest developments at a glance.

The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, meanwhile specified his announcement about a withdrawal from the front in eastern Ukraine. The positions in the city of Bakhmut are said to be taken over by fighters of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov from next Wednesday.

Both warring parties also exchanged almost 50 prisoners again. And the International Atomic Energy Agency was alarmed at fears of hostilities near the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

According to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, the investigation into the assassination attempt on the 47-year-old Prilepin has not yet been completed. “But it is already clear from the materials (…) that there is talk of another terrorist attack that was organized and carried out by the Kiev regime and that Western curators are behind.”

When asked by the Internet newspaper Ukrajinska Pravda, a representative of the Ukrainian secret service SBU said that they would “neither confirm nor deny” involvement in such attacks. A Ukrainian partisan movement called Atesh had previously indicated that it was behind the attack. At first, however, it was unclear how credible this message was.

Prilepin was seriously injured when an explosive device attached to his car detonated. Its driver died. According to official information, Prilepin woke up from the artificial coma on Sunday morning. “He is conscious, according to the doctors, his condition is stable, the mood is cheerful,” wrote the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, on his Telegram channel.

The nationalist writer (“Sankya”) is a staunch supporter of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. He’s fought there too.

Police arrested a man born in 1993 as a suspect shortly after the explosion, which took place in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow. The governor of Nizhny Novgorod, Gleb Nikitin, announced that Prilepin had meanwhile been operated on. He suffered multiple broken bones.

It is not the first time that a war supporter has been the target of an assassination attempt in Russia: just a few weeks ago, prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarski died in an explosion in a St. Petersburg café. Read more about it here. Last August, Darja Dugina – daughter of right-wing nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin – died near Moscow in a car bomb explosion.

Meanwhile, the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, says he is making concrete preparations for the imminent withdrawal of his fighters from the front in eastern Ukraine. Prigozhin’s press service told Telegram that he wanted to accept a transfer offer from the head of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov had previously stated that men from his Akhmat unit could take over the positions of the Wagner mercenaries in the heavily contested Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

More than a year after the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine, an open power struggle is raging within the Russian military leadership. Prigozhin recently repeatedly complained publicly about an alleged lack of ammunition. On Friday, the 61-year-old then announced that he would withdraw his fighters from Bachmut for this reason.

Prigozhin said that even after leaving Bakhmut, his troops would continue to fight for Moscow. “The Wagner fighters will be retained for the next operations in Russia’s interests,” he said on Sunday, according to the Russian state agency TASS.