MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Wagner private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin called his statements about the ceasefire in Artyomovsk during a US media trip to the city ‘military humor.’
Prigozhin said earlier on Thursday that American journalists accompanied by the Ukrainian military were heading to Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine). He said that a decision had been made to cease artillery fire so that "American journalists can calmly make footage of Bakhmut and leave for home."
"Information came that American journalists were coming from Chasov Yar accompanied by Tserber, commander of the Ukrainian army’s 57th brigade whom we have been hunting down for a long time and can’t catch him. I made a media statement. This is some kind of military humor and nothing else but humor. This was a joke," Prigozhin’s press office said in a commentary on its Telegram channel on his words about the ceasefire.
Artyomovsk is located on the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and was a major transportation hub for the Ukrainian army’s supplies in Donbass. Fierce fighting for the city is underway. On April 18, Yan Gagin, adviser to the acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, told TASS that Russian forces controlled already almost 90% of the territory of Artyomovsk.
Acting DPR Head Denis Pushilin said on Thursday that Russian forces had placed the Ukrainian army’s last supply route in Artyomovsk under their gunfire control.