Ukraine still has a foothold inside Bakhmut, says official
The deputy defense minister says Ukrainian troops are advancing near the city, prompting Russia to claim victory.
Ukrainian forces are still advancing on Bakhmut’s flanks and have a small foothold in the eastern city, a defense official in Kiev said, casting doubt on Russia’s claims again.
Over the weekend, the Wagner Group and Russian military leaders announced the capture of Bakhmut after months of heavy fighting.
But on Monday, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar said in televised comments: “We are still moving forward, but the intensity has somewhat diminished.
“If we talk about the north, there is much less active action there. Talking about the south, we are moving forward and the defense of Bakhmut as a city has fully achieved its military goal.
On Saturday, Russia announced that it had taken control of Bakhmut after a bloody 15-month battle, which, if confirmed, would be a major success for Moscow after setbacks on the front lines.
The battle for the city has been the longest and bloodiest of the war so far.
Mercenaries, who led the fight, posted videos on Telegram showing Wagner and Russian flags flying in the devastated city.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated his army and Wagner on the alleged capture.
For Moscow, the capture of Bakhmut would be a stepping stone to a deeper advance into the Donbas region and into the city of Sloviansk.
However, since the announcement, officials from Russia and Ukraine have provided conflicting status updates on who won the city and whether fighting is still ongoing.
On Sunday, Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Telegram that Kiev’s troops continued to attack Russian troops in the suburbs, moving closer to a “tactical encirclement” of the city.
Maliar echoed Syrskyi’s observations on Sunday, saying a “half-encirclement” could enable Ukraine to “destroy the enemy … the enemy must defend itself in the part of the city it controls.”
At a meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Japan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Bakhmut had not fallen and compared the city to the destruction of Hiroshima.
In response to a reporter’s question about the status of the city, he said, “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner forces, responded to Zelensky’s remarks, saying: “There is not a single Ukrainian soldier in the village of Bakhmut, because we have stopped taking prisoners.
“There are a large number of corpses from the Ukrainian army. Bakhmut is taken completely along all its legal boundaries, down to the last centimeter. [Zelenskyy] is disingenuous, or he, like our military leaders, is simply unaware of what is happening on the ground.”
On Monday, Prigozhin said his troops would leave Bakhmut later this week after taking the city as promised and handing over control of Bakhmut to the Russian army.