 U.S. 6,000 Varganarites fighting in Bakhmut. About 6,000 mercenaries of the Varganar group, private military company, and other 20,000 to 30,000 conscripts are involved in the fighting for the city of Bakhmut in Donensk Oblast. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of U.S., said it. They are conducting combat operations right now in Bakhmut primarily. It's about 6,000 or so actual mercenaries and maybe another 20,000 or 30,000 recruits that they get, many of which come from prisons, and they are suffering an enormous amount of casualties in the Bakhmut area. The Ukrainians are inflicting a lot of death and destruction on these guys, he added. General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that Russians continue to storm Bakhmut and have had partial success, but Ukrainian defenders hold the city. On the Bakhmut front, the Russians continue their assault operations on the city of Bakhmut and have had partial success. Nevertheless, our defenders courageously held the city and repelled numerous Russian attacks. General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said. Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Varganar group, said that his forces and their equipment have been badly damaged in the months-long campaign for control of the small but strategically important city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.