Wagner head claims 20,000 of his fighters died in battle for Ukraine's Bakhmut city

MOSCOW (AA) – Head of the Wagner private military company (PMC) Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed 20,000 of his employees died in the battle for Ukraine's city of Bakhmut.

In an interview with Russian Senator Konstantin Dolgov published on Wednesday, Prigozhin claimed Wagner's losses are three times less than those of Ukraine's armed forces.

"I had 35,000 on the front line. During the operation, I chose 50,000 prisoners, of which about 20% died. The same number of fatalities are among those who joined Wagner under a contract (not from prison)," he said.

Prigozhin added that some 20% of his fighters have wounds that make it impossible for them to perform combat tasks for at least three months.

The Wagner's head explained Ukraine suffered higher losses due to difficulties in evacuation from the battlefield while under attack from his fighters.

On May 20, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that Russian armed forces were in full control of Ukraine's city of Bakhmut, Artyomovsk in Russian.

President Vladimir Putin congratulated both the military and the fighters of the Wagner PMC on this success.

The battles for Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) lasted for more than 200 days, Prigozhin said, calling it a "meat grinder."

According to Prigozhin, it has been for the first time that a city was taken by the forces of a private military company.