Ukrainian forces still control the southwestern sector of the city. Bahamut and armed conflicts within the city itself have declined, Deputy Defense Minister said today Ukrainian Hanna Maliar.

As she wrote on messaging app Telegram, Kyiv forces have made some progress “on the northern and southern flanks of Bakhmut,” and Russian forces, who claim to have taken the city themselves, are still withdrawing from areas they control.

War of declarations about the fate of the city

Recall that Bahamut, which was also described as the “meat machine” of the war due to heavy losses on both sides, was the subject of conflicting statements by Russia and Ukraine last Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, from Hiroshima, where he traveled to attend the G7 summit, appeared to accept Russia’s claim that the city had fallen to Wagner, even saying that its destruction reminded him of images of a Japanese martyr city after a nuclear bomb.

But he later refuted the Russian claims, stating that “Bakhmut has not yet been captured by the Russian Federation.”

On the other hand, Russian news agencies showed the Kremlin and President Putin congratulating Wagner units and the Russian armed forces on the “liberation” of Artemovsk, after the Soviet name of Bakhmut. In the video, the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that at noon on Saturday, the city came under full control of Russia.

^{According to Reuters}