The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denys Pushylin, visited the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Tuesday and announced that from now on it will be called by the former Soviet name of Artemivsk, CNN reports.

“Bakhmut had the misfortune of being Ukrainian. Now not Ukraine, but Russia. And this is not Bakhmut, but Artemivsk,” said Denys Pusilin in a video posted on Telegram.

The video shows Pusilin walking through the streets of the heavily damaged city in military uniform and placing a DPR flag on a building.

In the video, he also claimed that the capture of Bakhmut would pave the way for Russian troops to further success in Ukraine.

Pusilin promised that “the city will be renewed”, promising new homes, jobs and schools.

Ukraine says it still holds a small part of the outskirts of Bakhmut

Ukraine said on Tuesday that fighting in Bakhmut had eased, but shelling in the area of ​​the city continued and its forces maintained control of a small area on the outskirts of the city, Reuters reported.

Russian forces said on Saturday they had fully captured Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after months of heavy fighting. Ukraine says it has made progress on the northern and southern flanks of the destroyed city and hopes to surround it.

“In the city of Bakhmut, hostilities have subsided, the enemy continues to clear the areas under his control,” Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Malyar wrote in the Telegram messenger.

Echoing Ukraine’s claims that its forces still hold a small part of the city 15 months after a full-scale Russian invasion, she said: “Our troops control the southwestern outskirts of the city in the Litak area.”

The Pentagon on Tuesday declined to provide details of the fighting in Bakhmut and whether Ukraine or Russia controls the city.