Russia can fight from salt mines in Bakhmut, says Wagner boss

The head of the Wagner Group of pro-Kremlin mercenaries has said that Russia’s frenzied efforts to seize the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine are aimed at taking control of “underground cities” that can be used as bases for troops and tanks.

It has been more than five months since Russia launched its bid to take Bakhmut, a salt-mining town that western analysts say has little strategic value. Relentless shelling and brutal house-to-house fighting has destroyed more than 60 per cent of its buildings, according to Ukrainian officials. The Kremlin’s forces are also attempting to capture Soledar, a town nearby.

The White House said last week that it suspected that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked catering tycoon who controls the Wagner Group, was seeking to take control of Bakhmut’s mines for commercial reasons. Wagner mercenaries are playing a major role in the battle for the town.

However, Prigozhin claimed that mines in the area would prove vital for Russia’s offensive. “The system of Soledar and Bakhmut mines, which is actually a network of underground cities, can not only [hold] a big group of people at a depth of 80-100 metres, but also tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which can move about there,” he wrote on Telegram at the weekend.

Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s chef,” was referring to a winding labyrinth of caves and salt mines that consist of more than 100 miles of tunnels. They contain a vast underground room which in more peaceful times hosted football matches and classical music concerts. The caves also housed art galleries and a subterranean winery that stopped production only after President Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine in February.

Prigozhin’s comments came after a 36-hour “Christmas ceasefire” that was announced by Putin last week was broken on numerous occasions by Russian forces. The Ukrainian military said the Kremlin’s troops had shelled dozens of sites along the front line. Among the dead was a 61-year-old woman and a 66-year-old man who were killed in Bakhmut on Friday. More than a dozen people were injured.

On Saturday, which was Christmas Day in the Orthodox church, The Times heard a number of incoming Russian rockets in Bakhmut and saw black smoke billowing from behind a cluster of buildings. A group of Ukrainian soldiers sprinted across the snowy road to take cover, wary that more missiles were on their way. A suspected Russian surveillance drone hovered nearby.

 “The occupiers wanted to gather strength and recuperate during the false Christmas ceasefire,” said Commander Skala, who is in charge of a Ukrainian reconnaissance battalion based in an underground command centre in Bakhmut. “This shows that the enemy is also exhausted.” In Bahkmut, death can come at any time and from any direction. As people queued for humanitarian aid, a rocket landed not far away, the acrid smell of explosives suddenly heavy in the frigid winter air. The near-constant shelling has desensitised many locals to suffering. “I don’t react much any more when I hear explosions or hear about people being killed or injured,” said Andriy, 42. “My feelings are numb.”

Once-bustling streets are now almost deserted. Just over one tenth of Bakhmut’s pre-war population of 70,000 is still there , living in the ruins of the town, sheltering from Russian rockets in basements or in the bombed-out shells of their former flats. It is a landscape of devastation where the pavements are covered with broken glass and the metallic remnants of missiles. The front line, on which Russian and Ukraine forces are battling for every house, is only hundreds of metres away in some places.

Those who remain are mainly the elderly, the very poor or those who are too stubborn to leave. There is no heating, gas, electricity or running water. Many people use small wood-powered stoves to try to heat their homes amid temperatures that fell to minus 14C at the weekend.

There is little that is rational about Putin’s war in Ukraine, but the destruction of Bakhmut highlights its grim absurdity. Putin claims he ordered tanks into Ukraine to protect Russian speakers such as those in Bakhmut, but these are now the very people who are suffering most from his army’s onslaught.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have suffered high losses in Bakhmut, earning the town the nickname the “meat grinder”. Images from drones that were recently posted to social media appeared to show the bodies of dozens of Russian soldiers lying in a field near the town. “The enemy is trying to move forward over its own corpses,” General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said.

Many of the Wagner fighters involved in the battle for Bakhmut are violent criminals who were released from Russian prisons in exchange for a six-month tour of duty. The first group of recruits was amnestied last week, Prigozhin said. Among them was a man who had been serving a 14-year sentence for killing his own grandmother and hiding her body in a basement.

 “The Wagner fighters that we have captured say that former prisoners are often thrown into the hottest spots without any preparation,” said Commander Skala. “They are followed by units that shoot those who do not want to go forward. This shows that not too many people in Russia are willing to fight in Ukraine.”

Amid the war-ravaged streets, a handful of street traders have set up stalls selling food and clothes to soldiers. “I work when I can,” said Oleksiy. He said he had bought a flat in Bakhmut just weeks before the start of Russia’s invasion, the purchase funded partially with money he had earned from picking apples in Kent. It was damaged by shelling months ago. As he spoke, Ukrainian tanks rolled down a side street.

On Orthodox Christmas Day, hundreds of people gathered at a walk-in centre in a former boxing ring where they can eat free food and get warm. About a dozen children watched cartoons on a television screen or played computer games, the sound of muffled explosions sometimes audible through the boarded windows.

Some locals said they no longer cared who controlled the town. “I just want peace — I want Putin and Zelensky to negotiate,” said Halya, 71. “So many people have died, so many children. Everything is destroyed.”

She shrugged when asked how Ukraine could negotiate with Russia while its invading troops were occupying swathes of the country. The Kremlin has said there can be no peace unless Kyiv surrenders four regions in the east and south of Ukraine, something that President Zelensky has ruled out. Putin also said before the war that Ukraine had no right to exist as an independent state. “I don’t know,” Halya said. “I don’t care. I just want things to go to back to how they were.”

It will be a long time before life in Bakhmut returns to anything resembling normality. There is also little sign that the battle for the city is winding down. On the outskirts of town, as Christmas drew to a close, two Ukrainian Su-25 attack aircraft screamed across the sky on their way to bomb Russian positions. “We will be here until we are victorious,” said Volodymyr, a Ukrainian soldier. “What else can we do?”