KYIV, Ukraine — The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed that Russian forces had raised their country’s flag in the center of Bakhmut, but a senior Ukrainian official said on Monday that Kyiv’s forces were still fighting for the embattled eastern city.
Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner private military company, said on Sunday that his fighters had hoisted a Russian flag and one representing the group’s forces over an administrative building in Bakhmut. In a post on the Telegram messaging app, he acknowledged that Ukrainian troops were still in the western part of the city but said that “legally, Bakhmut is taken.”
A video circulating Monday on social media and verified by The New York Times shows a Russian flag and a Wagner group flag planted atop the rubble of the City Council building in Bakhmut. The building is on the west side of the Bakhmutka River, which bisects the city and had until recently been the de facto front line. The river had formed a natural barrier to armored vehicles and its loss would signal Ukraine’s ever more precarious hold on the city. The aerial video, which was shot in recent days and shows extensive destruction, offers the clearest sign yet that some Russian forces have crossed into the western part of the city, although it does not indicate whether Russia or Ukraine controls the surrounding area.
Andriy Yermak, top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, on Monday rejected the assertion that Bakhmut had fallen. “Not even close to the reality,” he wrote on Twitter.
The Ukrainian authorities have declared Bakhmut off limits to journalists, and it was not possible to independently confirm either side’s account of the fighting.
The battle for Bakhmut, which began last summer, has become one of Russia’s longest-running assaults since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago. Wagner fighters had spearheaded the battle through last fall and winter. As the fighting has intensified in recent months, Moscow has thrown thousands of men from its armed forces and Wagner into a grinding and often block-by-block battle that has produced heavy casualties for both sides.
Bakhmut, an industrial city with a prewar population of around 70,000, is at the heart of a Russian campaign to seize all of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Months of shelling and bitter fighting have shattered Bakhmut and forced much of its population to flee.
While Bakhmut’s strategic importance has been debated, the battle for the city has taken on great symbolism. While both sides have sustained heavy losses, military experts and Ukrainian authorities say that Russian casualties have been far higher and have sapped Moscow’s ability to pursue its broader offensive in the east.
Russian forces have advanced steadily into the city in recent weeks, and at one point it appeared that Ukraine might be preparing to retreat. But Mr. Zelensky vowed not to give up Bakhmut, and senior Ukrainian generals have since said that the situation in the city could be stabilized.
On Monday, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said that the situation in Bakhmut “remains very tense” and that Russian forces appeared bent on capturing the city.
“Excessively high losses in personnel do not stop the enemy. Their decisions are emotional,” she said in a Telegram post. “Our defenders have to stop the advance of the enemy in difficult conditions.”
Haley Willis contributed reporting.
