Russia’s Wagner Group has claimed “legal” control of Ukraine’s Bakhmut, but Kyiv said its forces still held the eastern town, describing the fighting there as “particularly hot”. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the paramilitary force, said on Monday that his troops, involved in a months-long effort to encircle and capture the bombed-out town, had raised a Russian flag on its administrative building.

“From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western parts,” Prigozhin said in an audio message posted on his press service’s Telegram account. But there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut, a town of 70,000 before the Russian invasion launched over a year ago, had fallen into Russian hands. Ukrainian military leaders said on Monday after Prigozhin’s video was released that enemy troops had tried to take control of the town, but their forces had “repelled more than 20 enemy attacks”.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier on Sunday praised Ukrainian troops’ defence of the city. “Thank you to our soldiers who are fighting in Avdiivka, Maryinka, and Bakhmut,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “Especially Bakhmut. It is especially hot there.” Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar had earlier described the situation around the town as “tense”. Ukrainian forces were defending their positions, and Russian forces were paying scant attention to losses as they attacked, Maliar said.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP