The Ukrainian government controls only a third of the city of Bakhmut, which has been the scene of brutal and deadly fighting in the east of the country for months, Serhiy Lechenko, an adviser to the president of Ukraine, said on Thursday, according to AFP.

According to international observers, one third of the territory of Ukraine is under Bakhmut’s control,” Lehchenko said at a briefing on the president’s Telegram account.

But he denied that the city was surrounded by Russian troops, as a pro-Russian official in the east recently claimed.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian paramilitary group “Wagner”, said on March 20 that his men on the front lines of the fighting control “about 70 percent” of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian authorities have not yet confirmed this information.

A town of about 70,000 before the war, Bakhmut became a symbol of the struggle between the Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass due to the length of the battle and the heavy losses on both sides.

In recent months, Russian troops have advanced north and south of the city, cutting off several Ukrainian supply routes and capturing its eastern part.

The US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Wednesday that Russian forces control “about 65 percent” of Bakhmut after advancing over the past five days, especially in the north.

The Ukrainian military said it had “stabilized” the situation in the area and hoped “very soon” to take advantage of Russia’s exhaustion to launch a counteroffensive.

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