Head of Russia’s Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin said that his fighters have completed the capture of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, while Kyiv affirmed that fighting was still going on but acknowledged that the situation inside the city was “critical”.

Prigozhin made the claim in a video posted on Telegram in which he appeared in front of a line of fighters holding Russian flags and what appeared to be the citys destroyed railway station.

“Today, at noon, Bakhmut was completely taken,” Prigozhin said. “We completely took the whole city, from house to house.” Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar said that Ukrainian soldiers were still holding their ground in “certain industrial and infrastructure facilities” in the southwest corner of Bakhmut. There continued to be “heavy fighting,” she said in a brief statement.

Bakhmut has been the focus of the longest battle of Russias military operation in Ukraine, which is nearly at the end of its 15th month.

Source: Qatar News Agency