‘Every house a fortress’: Wagner leader counts cost as Russian offensive stalls in Bakhmut

Grim footage show Yevgeny Prigozhin visiting basement filled with the body bags of fighters near eastern front

The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said his fighters have sometimes spent weeks attempting to capture a single house in the key contested Donbas city of Bakhmut, in the latest evidence of how the Kremlin’s efforts there have stalled.

In a grim video released over new year, Prigozhin – a key ally of Putin – was filmed visiting a basement near the eastern front filled with the bodybags of his fighters, many of them convicts, who had been killed during the bitter fighting for the city, a key Russian objective since the summer.