The city of Bahmat in the east of Ukraine is not large, with a population of about 70,000. Given the intense and prolonged fighting that began in the summer of last year over this city, the city’s failure has symbolic significance for the Russian-Ukrainian strategy. On Friday, 5 May, the local time of the founder of the Russian Wagner mercenaries group, Yevgenny Prigzin, suddenly announced that the Wagner forces would leave Bahmutt on 10 May and that the Bahmuth position would be handed over to the Russian Ministry of Defence forces. “We have an obligation to hand over the positions in the city of Bahmutt to the forces of the Ministry of Defence (Russian Federation) on 10 May 2023 and to withdraw the remaining forces in Wagner to the logistics camp in order to burn them.” Prigozin stated in his statement.