Ukraine says Russia ‘very far’ from seizing Bakhmut, denies Prigozhin claims

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine said on Monday that Russian forces were “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged on around the administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claimed to have raised the Russian flag.

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command told Reuters that it was unclear where Russian forces had raised their flag and that they had falsely claimed to have captured the city.

“They raised the flag over some kind of toilet. They attached it to the side of who knows what, hung their rag and said they had captured the city. Well good, let them think they’ve taken it,” the official, Serhiy Cherevatyi, said by telephone.

Bakhmut has been the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the war, now in its second year, with huge casualties on both sides and much of the eastern city destroyed by bombardments.

The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said late on Sunday that his forces had raised the Russian flag over the administration building.

Prigozhin said that from a “legal” point of view, Bakhmut had been captured by Russia, an idea vehemently denied by Cherevatyi.

“There are battles around the building of (Bakhmut’s) city council, they haven’t captured anything in a legal sense,” said Cherevatiy.

“Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” he said.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Gareth Jones)