The chief of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed Saturday that his forces have taken complete control of the long-contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
“The operation to capture Bakhmut lasted 224 days,” he said in a video posted to Telegram, seeking to claim a final victory for the city.
CNN could not independently verify Prigozhin’s claim, and a message from a Ukrainian defense official partially disputed it.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, in a Telegram post less than an hour after the Russian mercenary’s claim was published, admitted the situation in Bakhmut was “critical” but said Ukrainian troops were still “holding the defense in the 'Airplane' district of the city,” which is on Bakhmut’s westernmost edge.
“As of now, our defenders control certain industrial and infrastructure facilities in the area and the private sector,” she said.
While Russian forces have continued their slow street-by-street advance in the city itself for many months, Ukrainian forces have recently managed to re-capture small pockets of outlying territory to the northwest and southwest of the city.
Prigozhin claimed his forces will hand the control of Bakhmut to the Russian military on May 25.
Background on Bakhmut: The eastern city has been the focal point of a grinding battle between Ukrainian and Russia fighters.
Stark satellite photos show how much it has changed over the past year, with the city in ruins in many areas.
The city sits toward the northeast of the Donetsk region, about 13 miles from Luhansk region, and has been a target for Russian forces for months. Since last summer, the city has been a stone’s throw from the front lines, so its capture would represent a long sought-after success for Moscow’s forces – and bring some limited strategic value.
The city has important road connections to other parts of the Donetsk region: eastward to the border with Luhansk, northwest to Sloviansk and southwest to Kostiantynivka.
More from Prigozhin: In the video, the Wagner leader thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for giving his fighters the "honor to defend our Motherland," but he also called out "the Russian bureaucracy" — as he has publicly and forcefully done in the past few months — particularly Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.
They "turned the war into their own entertainment," he claimed. "... Because of their whims, five times more guys died."