Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky claims Moscow has “not occupied” Bakhmut, while the leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force claims his soldiers have taken control of the eastern city “to the last centimeter.”
Kyiv’s military said it was hanging on to a small part of the city and said its troops were advancing on its flanks.
Bakhmut, a salt-mining town that once had a population of 70,000 people, has been the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting in Moscow’s 15-month Ukraine offensive.
Earlier, Wagner and Moscow’s regular army claimed to have fully captured Bakhmut, with Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulating them on the alleged conquest.
But speaking at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Zelensky denied Russia’s claims.
Zelensky compared the “absolute total destruction” in Bakhmut to the devastation in Hiroshima when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city in 1945.
“There is absolutely nothing alive (there)” he said.
The Ukrainian army on Sunday said it retained an “insignificant” part of the city and that soldiers were advancing in from the city’s outer limits.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s Eastern Grouping of Forces, Sergiy Cherevatyj, said Ukrainian troops were conducting counterattacks in the city and its surroundings.
Russian forces “are trying to take the whole city under their control. Our units are holding defense — several buildings and a number of fortifications in the southwestern part” of Bakhmut, he said on national television.
Fierce clashes occurred in other eastern cities and towns including Mariinka and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, according to a Ukrainian General Staff report, which said Russians conducted four missile strikes and 45 airstrikes Sunday.
The loss of Bakhmut would be hugely symbolic for the Ukrainians, who had held on for months — ignoring US advice behind the scenes to focus elsewhere.
