Russia has been trying to encircle the battered industrial city and wrest it ahead of February 24, the first anniversary of what it terms its "special military operation" in Ukraine.
"I think it's (going to be in) March or in April," Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said in one of several messages posted online overnight.
"To take Bakhmut you have to cut all supply routes. It's a significant task," he said, adding: "Progress is not going as fast as we would like".
"Bakhmut would have been taken before the New Year, if not for our monstrous military bureaucracy ... and the spokes that are put in the wheels daily," he added.
Prigozhin has previously accused the Russian military of attempting to "steal" victories from Wagner, a sign of his rising clout and the potential for dangerous rifts in Moscow.
The fierce fighting for the eastern industrial city is now the longest running battle of Russia's intervention and Moscow's key military objective.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region where Bakhmut lies last year but his forces are fighting off Ukrainian troops there.
The capture of Bakhmut would be a major win for Moscow but analysts say its capture would be mainly symbolic as the salt-mining town holds little strategic value.
Ukrainian forces are determined not to cede any ground ahead of an anticipated counter-offensive in the spring.
- Widening rift -
Prigohzin, who is close to Putin, said the speed of Russian progress in the grinding battle would depend on whether Ukraine continued to send reserves to hold the city.
His private fighting force, which has recruited prisoners from across Russia with the promise of amnesty, has claimed a lead role in recent battles in east Ukraine.
He announced last week that Wagner would no longer be tapping prisons to fill its ranks and on Thursday warned this would also impact the fighting.
"Of course, at some point the number of units will drop and as a result the number of tasks that we can perform will not be what we want," he added.
Wagner's claims to have captured ground without help from the regular army has spurred friction with senior military leadership.
- 'Ready to fight' -
Moscow is also pursuing a campaign of trying to cripple Ukraine's energy infrastructure by firing drones and missiles.
Kyiv said Thursday it had shot down 16 missiles from the latest barrage of two dozen launched overnight from planes and ships in the Black Sea.
"Unfortunately, (the missiles hit) in the north and west of Ukraine," presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said.
Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak posted images on social media of firefighters working among the debris of partially destroyed homes in the central province.
The strikes killed a 79-year-old woman, Lysak said.
The Russian aerial attacks have left millions in the cold and dark in winter.
With Russia still battering the energy grid -- despite what analysts say is a dwindling stockpile of long-range projectiles -- fears have steadily mounted of a potential new Russian attack from the north.
Russia had launched the nearly year-old offensive from its soil and Belarus, ruled by Kremlin-ally Alexander Lukashenko.
During a rare interview with international media including AFP on Thursday, Lukashenko said his country would "only" join Russia's offensive in Ukraine if Belarus is attacked first by Kyiv.
"I'm ready to fight together with the Russians from the territory of Belarus in one case only: if so much as one soldier from (Ukraine) comes to our territory with a gun to kill my people," he said.
Separately, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen arrived in Kyiv Thursday to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
"I came to say: Israel stands by Ukraine and by the Ukrainian people in their difficult time," Cohen wrote on Twitter.
Shortly after arrival, the minister visited the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, the site of an alleged massacre of Ukrainian civilians.
"We cannot remain indifferent to these difficult images and to the stories of atrocities which I heard here. Israel condemns any intentional attack on innocent people," he wrote on Twitter.
Israel has adopted a cautious approach since Russian forces invaded Ukraine last February, seeking to maintain neutrality between the warring sides.
Russian refuseniks hide in fear to evade Ukraine conflict
Undisclosed Location, Russia (AFP) Feb 16, 2023 - The documents issued to Dmitry by the Russian military carry an ominous hand-written designation: "Category One. State of Health B".
It means he has been given a clean bill of health and should be in Ukraine, fighting on the front lines of Moscow's fierce and bloody year-long offensive.
But the Russian in his 20s -- wearing a hoodie and holding the army papers in his hands -- is nowhere near the battles for Ukraine's industrial east.
Instead, he is hiding from the authorities, trapped in his own country and living in fear of being punished for refusing to fight and his stance on the conflict.
"Taking part in this disgrace marks you for life," he said, describing Russia's intervention in Ukraine as "barbaric" and "criminal".
Dmitry, whose name has been changed for security reasons and who spoke to AFP at an undisclosed location in Russia, was among at least 300,000 reservists called up last year.
When President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilisation drive on state television in late September, it sparked a frantic exodus of military-aged men from the country.
Some, who didn't want to leave the country or didn't have the means, claimed exemptions on medical or professional grounds.
Others like Dmitry -- and nobody knows the exact figure -- just ignored the orders.
- 'Ignored it' -
In the months since, they have relied on luck, cunning or bureaucratic loopholes to avoid a raft of new punitive legislation that could land them in prison for evading the draft.
For Dmitry, who previously trained with Russia's elite paratroopers as part of his mandatory military service, it was perhaps a combination of all three.
His mobilisation order came at the end of September, days after Putin's announcement.
But it was delivered to his old residence in a region where he no longer lives. He showed AFP the former address written on his government-issued identity documents.
"A utilities company tried to deliver the papers to me. But... I hadn't been there for more than three months," he told AFP.
He said local authorities should have removed him from the military register in that region. The fact that they didn't gave him an easy out.
"I simply ignored it," he said.
Among his social circle, eight have been mobilised, he said. Some secured last-minute exemptions. Others went to fight.
Nearly five months since, he is on alert, careful not to disclose his whereabouts accidentally to authorities.
- 'Digital hygiene' -
He only travels within the administrative borders of the region where he lives and works remotely for an IT company based abroad.
Dmitry also follows protocols of "strict digital hygiene" employing IT tools that mask the location of his telephone and computer.
He also avoids the surveillance cameras in his city that he knows to be equipped with facial recognition software and which have been used by law enforcement to scoop up other draft dodgers.
"Either you stay in the wilderness -- the country is big and there are lots of places -- or do the opposite, get lost in some big city," Dmitry explained.
But whatever measures you take to avoid detection from police and military personnel, its impossible to escape the anxiety of being caught.
Another young Russian, in hiding after being called up, cancelled an interview with AFP at the last minute, fearing that meeting journalists would attract police attention.
As time drags on, Dmitry's fraught position looks increasingly precarious.
Dmitry chose to remain in Russia to be close to his loved ones -- especially his partner and her child.
Leaving now looks far more dangerous, since Russian security services have drawn up lists of mobilised people for cross-checking at the country's borders.
- 'Rather go to prison' -
Adding to his worries are the rumours of a possible second call-up wave and announcements that military recruitment offices are digitising.
As the political climate in Russia becomes increasingly suspicious of dissent, he is also scared of being denounced.
The stakes are high. If arrested, Dmitry could be handed prison time for insubordination.
But, Dmitry said, the choice is clear.
"If I can't resist the state, I'd rather go to prison," he said.
The outbreak of fighting that spurred Putin's mobilisation orders was a double blow for Dmitry, bringing fear but also regret.
That's because he has extended family in Ukraine -- including some now living in territory controlled by Russia -- whom he has never met.
"It's a cliche but I always dreamed of going to Kyiv and Odesa to meet my relatives and to talk to them."
"It's been shattered by one person," he said.
Prigozhin, Simonyan, Medvedev: the rise of the Russian hawk
Moscow (AFP) Feb 16, 2023 -
The first one challenged Ukraine's president to a fighter jet duel. The second has threatened Europe with nuclear apocalypse. The third has said cannibals roam Ukraine.
Russia's warmongers used to be relegated to the margins of society but now they are basking in the limelight after the Kremlin ordered its army to Ukraine.
These are Moscow's fiercest hawks, whose rise points to a new military fervour in Russia:
- Prigozhin: the warlord -
For years, Yevgeny Prigozhin did the Kremlin's bidding from the shadows, dispatching mercenaries from his private fighting force to conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, always denying involvement.
That changed with the Ukraine conflict. The 61-year-old both admitted he started the Wagner group and then began recruitment drives from Russia's prison network.
His offer? Fight in exchange for amnesty. The catch? Deserters and fighters who let themselves be captured would be summarily killed.
When video circulated showing an alleged Wagner deserter being executed with a sledgehammer, Prigozhin praised the killing, calling the dead man a "dog".
"Do not drink too much, don't take drugs, don't rape anyone," he told a group of prisoners who had served a six-month term and were being released into society.
Unlike Russia's generals, who have been criticised for shirking the battles, the stocky and bald Prigozhin regularly poses for pictures alongside mercenaries allegedly on the front lines.
Most recently, Prigozhin posted from the cockpit of a SU-24 fighter jet and challenged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- who has been pleading for jets -- to an aerial duel.
"If you want, let's meet in the skies. If you win, you will take (Bakhmut)," he said, referring to the longest battle of Russia's campaign.
The former hotdog seller from Saint Petersburg, who was himself jailed for nearly a decade during the Soviet era, has also tangled with Russia's top brass.
He clashed last month with the defence ministry over whose force had captured the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin criticised the military's attempts to "steal the victory" from Wagner, pointing to his rising clout and the potential for dangerous rifts between him and officials in Moscow.
- Medvedev: the new convert -
For former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, the conflict has offered an opportunity to reinvent himself, shedding all traces of his liberal past to become one of Russia's most bellicose hawks.
The 57-year-old, now serving as deputy chairman of Russia's security council, was once famously photographed eating burgers with then-US President Barack Obama.
The picture now is very different.
"The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war," he warned ahead of a meeting of Ukraine's allies in Germany in January.
Medvedev has called US President Joe Biden "a strange grandfather with dementia" and referred to EU leaders as "lunatics".
And the Ukrainian government? "A bunch of crazy Nazi drug addicts," he said last November.
But Medvedev, once a regular on state television, is now mostly relegated to social media and his Telegram channel, which has more than one million subscribers.
"People often ask me why my messages are so harsh. The answer is this: I hate them," he said four months after the Kremlin launched its intervention in Ukraine.
"They are bastards and degenerates. They want us dead. They want Russia dead. And as long as I am alive, I will do everything I can to make them disappear."
- Simonyan: the information warrior -
Margarita Simonyan, the matriarch of Kremlin propaganda and the head of state-run television network RT, was already a vocal supporter of President Vladimir Putin before Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
Her rhetoric has since ratcheted up. The 42-year-old is a frequent guest on talk shows, where she launches tirades bristling with patriotic fervour and threats of nuclear apocalypse.
"Either we will win, or things will end badly for the whole of humanity," she said last May.
But the beginning of the offensive posed an immediate problem for Simonyan's network -- also known as Russia Today -- which was banned in most Western countries.
"Whenever they shut us down, we just used other (ways) to keep publishing... and passing on our message," Simonyan said in response.
Even though she routinely denounces this Western "censorship," Simonyan has also demanded that Russia ban foreign social media platforms -- a call Moscow has made good on.
"For 10 years I've been saying it: we still need to close everything, to ban it all, and to replace it with our own," she said.
In recognition of her work since the beginning of the conflict, Putin awarded her the Order of Honour in December.
"Thank you for slaying the cannibals," she told the Russian leader in accepting the award.
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