Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that the Wagner group has shifted to using more professional soldiers in the battle for Bakhmut as its supply of prisoner recruits has dwindled, suggesting that Ukraine may be hoping its battle in the city can severely damage a highly effective fighting force for Russia.

“This is their last shot,” Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told Radio Liberty in an interview, referring to the Wagner group.

The mercenary force has helped Russia make crawling advances towards Bakhmut largely by relying on prisoners as essentially disposable manpower.

Of the prisoner brigades, Colonel Cherevaty said, “Almost all of them have been killed there” in Bakhmut, leading Wagner to begin using more former Russian special forces recruited into the private military company.

Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, has been in a public battle with Russia’s defence ministry, and has said he has not been allowed to recruit more prisoners recently, even though those recruits are thought to have been critical to Wagner’s success in Bakhmut.

Prigozhin has publicly questioned whether that decision to cut off the supply of prisoners is intentional to destroy Wagner’s “offensive potential”.

The comments by Colonel Cherevaty came as some analysts question whether Ukraine should continue to expend so many resources in the withering battle to try to hold on to Bakhmut.

The assessments shed new light on a prolonged battle that top Ukrainian officials say they will continue to fight, even as Russian forces surround the city from three directions and both sides suffer enormous casualties.

If Ukraine can eliminate Russia’s limited supply of prisoner soldiers fighting in the Wagner paramilitary group in Bakhmut, analysts say, they will not have to face them again elsewhere.

“Russian convict recruits suitable for combat is not limitless and the permanent elimination of tens of thousands of them in Bakhmut means that they will not be available for more important fights,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a research group in Washington.

The group echoed Ukraine’s assessment that Wagner units were shifting away from brigades of former prisoners after they endured staggering losses.

“Russian forces near Bakhmut have recently changed tactics and committed higher-quality special forces,” the group said.

“The Wagner Group is still likely using prisoners to support operations in Bakhmut, albeit to a much more limited extent than in previous months”.

New York Times News Service