AGENCIES

Ukraine’s military said its troops were locked in combat with Russian forces around the administration building of Bakhmut yesterday, and it poured scorn on Russian claims that mercenary fighters had captured the eastern city after months of warfare.

“The enemy has not stopped its assault of Bakhmut. However, Ukrainian defenders are courageously holding the city as they repel numerous enemy attacks,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on its Facebook page.

A Ukrainian spokesman said the Russians had raised a victory flag not over the building but over “some kind of toilet”.

In Moscow, the Kremlin accused Ukraine of being behind a bomb blast at a cafe in St Petersburg on Sunday that killed a prominent Russian pro-war blogger. Russia said it had arrested a woman suspected of blowing up the blogger.

The battle for Bakhmut has been one of the bloodiest of the conflict, now in its second year, with many casualties on both sides and much of the eastern city destroyed by bombardments.

Front lines have shifted backwards and forwards in street-by-street fighting.

The head of the Wagner mercenary force, which has spearheaded the Kremlin’s campaign to encircle and capture Bakhmut, said on Sunday his troops had raised a Russian flag on the administrative building in the city centre.

Yevgeny Prigozhin acknowledged that Ukrainian troops were still holding some positions. But he said in video posted on Telegram: “From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western parts.”

Prigozhin has previously made claims that were premature.

The Ukrainian military however said yesterday that fighting was still going on in Bakhmut as well as in several other towns.

Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for the eastern military command, said the Russian claim to have captured the city was false. Clashes were taking place around the city council building, he said.

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

“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,” Cherevatyi said by telephone.

Meanwhile Moscow’s ambassador to Minsk said on Sunday that Russia would move nuclear weapons close to the western borders of Belarus - a move that would place them at Nato’s threshold.

The weapons “will increase the possibilities to ensure security”, ambassador Boris Gryzlov told Belarusian state television. “This will be done despite the noise in Europe and the United States.”