JAKARTA - The Ukrainian military has dismissed claims Russia has taken control of Bakhmut, saying it is still far from capturing the city in the eastern region, with fighting still ongoing around buildings where the Wagner Group's group of mercenaries claimed to have raised the Russian flag.
A spokesman for Ukraine's eastern military command told Reuters it was unclear where Russian troops raised their flags and misclaimed they had captured the city.
"They waved the flag over some kind of toilet. They put it on the side of whatever, hung up on the fabric and said they had captured the city. Let them think they had snatched it," an official named Serhiy Cherevatyi said by telephone.
Bakhmut has been one of the bloodiest fighting battles in the war, which is now entering its second year, with huge casualties on both sides, with most of the city destroyed by the bombings.
Earlier, the head of Russia's Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed on Sunday his troops had raised the Russian flag over the government building.
Prigozhin said, from a "law" point of view, Bakhmut had been controlled by Russia, an idea that Cherevatyi strongly denied.
"There is fighting around the city council building (Bakhmut), they have not captured anything in the sense of law," said Cherevatyi.
"Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they haven't snatched anything and it's still very far from winning," he stressed.
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