Fighting around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut remained “particularly hot,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said, without hinting that the city had eventually fallen to Russia, as claimed by the founder of the Wagner mercenary force.
Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that his troops, involved in a months-long effort to encircle and take the bombed-out city, raised a Russian flag on the administrative building.
“Legally, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western parts,” Prigozhin said in a video posted to his press service’s Telegram account on Sunday.
But there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut, a city of 70,000 before the Russian invasion began more than a year ago, had fallen into Russian hands.
The Ukrainian military said in an update Monday that Bakhmut and several other cities, including Avdiivka, were the “epicenter of hostilities”.
“The enemy continues its attack on the city of Bakhmut. However, our defenders are holding the city courageously,” the army said.
President Zelensky, in his video address on Sunday evening, thanked the soldiers who fought in Avdiivka, Maryinka and Bakhmut.
‘Especially Bakhmut. It’s very hot there,’ he said.