The owner of the Russian Wagner Group private military contractor actively involved in the fighting in Ukraine has predicted that the war could drag on for years.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview released late Friday that it could take 18 months to two years for Russia to fully secure control of Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland of Donbas. He added that the war could go on for three years if Moscow decides to capture broader territories east of the Dnieper River.
The Russian forces have focused on Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the Donbas region where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Prigozhin said that the Wagner Group mercenaries were continuing fierce battles for control of the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. He acknowledged that the Ukrainian troops were mounting fierce resistance.
Ukraine's energy company, Ukrenergo, said Saturday that the situation was “difficult but controllable,” adding that involved backups to keep up power supplies but noting that power rationing will continue in some areas. Head of Ukraine's state nuclear operator Energoatom Petro Kotin said Saturday that more power will come into the country's energy system after two nuclear reactors have been repaired.
Russia's Defense Ministry said that Friday's strikes hit all the designated targets, halting the operation of Ukraine's defense factories and blocking the delivery of supplies of Western weapons and ammunition. The claim couldn't be independently verified. Ukraine’s military chief Zaluzhnyi said in an online statement that he has expressed concern about the use of such drones in a phone conversation with the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, on Saturday, adding that it “poses a threat to civilian navigation in the Black Sea.”