Prune empty commits in ref range using git-filter-repo

Question

Suppose I have a tree such as

0 - A - 1 - E1 - 2 - B - E2 - 3 - ..
                      \
                       c - 4 - ..

I want to prune empty commits in a range A..B and end up with:

0 - A - 1 - 2` - B` - E2` - 3` - ..
                  \
                   c` - 4` - ..

Running

git filter-repo --prune-empty always --refs A..B

Results in no change, presumably since B.. is not rewritten.

Running

git filter-repo --prune-empty always --refs A..B --replaces-refs update-or-add && \
git filter-repo --prune-empty auto

seems to yield the desired result. Thing is, I know very little about replace-refs. I wonder if this is the right way to go about this problem.

I should add that I'm not rewriting public history. For all intents and purposes, the history is just within the local repository.