The tide may be
turning in Ukraine's favor
and his city and its forces
have been trying to keep for months.
And we have new dramatic footage
showing the battle for Bakhmut
Russia is now acknowledging
its troops
have been forced
to pull back from northern areas around Ba
The head of the Wagner Group
says it's not a tactical retreat,
but rather Russian forces
are simply falling out of formation.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joins us live now
from Zaphorizhzhia.
Obviously, you have Prigozhin
calling out the Russian military
here, saying that
actually they've lost about
five square kilometers of territory
just in one day alone.
Just walk us through
what we know on that front
Yeah, I mean,
this is kind of the culmination of a week
now of Yevgeny Prigozhin
using the Telegram
Social Media Channel
to publicly call out the Russian
top brass.
He did, in fact, say that two days ago
he might even abandon back moved.
But the outcome of this
extraordinary bout
of criticism of Russia's
top brass as being today,
Guinea prigozhin to claim
that russia's
ministry of defense troops
have moved into the outskirts of back
around his Volga, the mercenaries
who hold the city
and essentially over the past
24 hours have given up
five square kilometers
to the northwest of that city area.
Now, he says this now is giving
Ukrainian armed forces the high ground,
which can be very advantageous for them
moving forwards
and indeed to something
that is backed up by a statement
from the Russian Ministry of Defense
that is sort of somewhat deceptively
almost borrowed from Prigozhin
his description of it
talk about
their soldiers
moving back to a more advantageous
position.
Prigozhin called that out,
really saying
that any
Russian military offense
needed to stop lying
about the reality of the ground.
But this bickering between Russia's
military elite,
the mercenaries on one side
demanding more shells
artillery shells
from the military, on the other,
the military moving
in, it seems,
on the outskirts of the city,
yet pulling back in some areas.
And the mercenary Wagner group
staying in the city center
and claiming that they continue
to take more areas there.
That is simply the worst
signal, almost unimaginable,
frankly, a year ago
in Putin's Russia
showing how rattled how this unified
Moscow's
military elite are in this key city.
That's been such
a symbolic task for them.
They've utterly failed
to comprehensively take
and are now, in fact, seeing Ukraine
in small amounts.
Let's not overstate
the significance of these advances
in small amounts, though,
beginning to reclaim territory
that could herald something more.
What it absolutely, unequivocally does
in the days and weeks ahead
is give a signal
of probably low Russian morale
low Russian cohesion
ahead of Ukrainian counter offensive,
which senior U.S.
officials said
has begun its shaping operation state.
That's essentially where key
parts of Russian infrastructure,
fuel supplies, other elements
of their occupation
of southern,
eastern and Crimea in Ukraine
may well end up being targeted
with precision strikes that face
what we've been seeing, frankly,
over the past two
to three weeks,
citing reports
from pro-Russian officials
in the occupied areas,
but a sign of the building
potential intensity
ahead of Ukraine's counteroffensive
that its president
says is yet to start
wanting more Western weapons
and to this startling
display of Russian
disunity and tiny,
tiny amounts of retreat
around a city which they've invested
That's just the wrong
word, entirely squandered
so many thousands of human lives
and trying to capture Saint.
Nick Paton Walsh live for us there.
Thank you so much.
Well, Ukrainian President
Vladimir Zelensky
may be meeting
with the pope on Thursday in Rome,
according to Italian media outlets. Mr.
Zelensky is already set
to meet Italy's president
and Prime minister during his visit.
Last month, Pope
Francis said
the Vatican is on a mission
to end the war in Ukraine.
Kiev has also asked the Holy See
see to help return Ukrainian children
who were forcibly deported to Russia.