The Russian paramilitary Wagner Group announced on Monday that it had taken control of the Bakhmut municipality building in eastern Ukraine, saying that this means that it now controls the city in a "legal sense."
"In the legal sense, Bakhmut has been taken over. The enemy is concentrated in the western regions," Wagner commander Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Telegram.
A video accompanying his letter shows Prigozhin waving a Russian flag with writing honoring Vladlen Tatarsky, a Russian military blogger who was a staunch supporter of the attack in Ukraine and who was killed by a bomb in Saint Petersburg on Sunday.
"Here is the Wagner PMC, here are the men who took control of Bakhmut. From a legal point of view it is ours," he said.
Bakhmut had a population of 70,000 before the war. For months, this city has become the scene of violent battles.
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The Wagner Group announces control of the Bakhmut municipality building