KYIV, Ukraine — The top of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed that Russian forces had raised their nation’s flag within the heart of Bakhmut, however a senior Ukrainian official stated on Monday that Kyiv’s forces have been nonetheless preventing for the embattled japanese metropolis.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner personal army firm, stated on Sunday that his fighters had hoisted a Russian flag and one representing the group’s forces over an administrative constructing in Bakhmut. In a put up on the Telegram messaging app, he acknowledged that Ukrainian troops have been nonetheless within the western a part of town however stated that “legally, Bakhmut is taken.”

A video circulating Monday on social media and verified by The New York Occasions exhibits a Russian flag and a Wagner group flag planted atop the rubble of the Metropolis Council constructing in Bakhmut. The constructing is on the west aspect of the Bakhmutka River, which bisects town and had till just lately been the de facto entrance line. The river had shaped a pure barrier to armored autos and its loss would sign Ukraine’s ever extra precarious maintain on town. The aerial video, which was shot in current days and exhibits in depth destruction, presents the clearest signal but that some Russian forces have crossed into the western a part of town, though it doesn’t point out whether or not Russia or Ukraine controls the encircling space.

Andriy Yermak, prime adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, on Monday rejected the assertion that Bakhmut had fallen. “Not even near the fact,” he wrote on Twitter.

The Ukrainian authorities have declared Bakhmut off limits to journalists, and it was not attainable to independently verify both aspect’s account of the preventing.

The battle for Bakhmut, which started final summer season, has develop into one among Russia’s longest-running assaults since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine greater than a yr in the past. Wagner fighters had spearheaded the battle via final fall and winter. Because the preventing has intensified in current months, Moscow has thrown 1000’s of males from its armed forces and Wagner right into a grinding and infrequently block-by-block battle that has produced heavy casualties for each side.

Bakhmut, an industrial metropolis with a prewar inhabitants of round 70,000, is on the coronary heart of a Russian marketing campaign to grab the entire Donbas area of japanese Ukraine. Months of shelling and bitter preventing have shattered Bakhmut and compelled a lot of its inhabitants to flee.

Whereas Bakhmut’s strategic significance has been debated, the battle for town has taken on nice symbolism. Whereas each side have sustained heavy losses, army consultants and Ukrainian authorities say that Russian casualties have been far increased and have sapped Moscow’s means to pursue its broader offensive within the east.

Russian forces have superior steadily into town in current weeks, and at one level it appeared that Ukraine could be making ready to retreat. However Mr. Zelensky vowed not to surrender Bakhmut, and senior Ukrainian generals have since stated that the state of affairs within the metropolis may very well be stabilized.

On Monday, Ukraine’s deputy protection minister, Hanna Maliar, stated that the state of affairs in Bakhmut “stays very tense” and that Russian forces appeared bent on capturing town.

“Excessively excessive losses in personnel don’t cease the enemy. Their selections are emotional,” she stated in a Telegram put up. “Our defenders need to cease the advance of the enemy in troublesome circumstances.”

Haley Willis contributed reporting.