Wagner founder and financier Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Tuesday that Russian forces already controlled 80% of the besieged town of Bakhmut.

“We are fully focused on Bakhmut, we continue to carry out combat missions. In Bakhmut, most of it, more than 80%, is under our control. Including the entire administrative center, factories, factories , the city administration “Prigozhin said. “What remains is part of the multi-storey residential areas, where fortification quarters have been built. There are tunnels under these tall buildings.”

Ukrainian authorities have denied Prigozhin’s claim.

“This statement by Prigozhin is not true,” Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for the Eastern Group of Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN on Tuesday. “I have just been in contact with the commander of one of the brigades defending the city. I can say with certainty that the Ukrainian Defense Forces control a much larger percentage of the territory of Bakhmut.”

“Prigozhin must show at least some victory in the city, which they have been trying to capture for nine consecutive months, that’s why he makes these kinds of statements,” added Cherevatyi.

Wagner’s founder is known for making outlandish and incorrect statements about the advance of his forces on the ground in Ukraine. Last week, April 3, he posted a blurry video of himself raising a flag at dawn, saying Bakhmut had been “caught”, despite continued fighting in and around the city. Western authorities viewed his request as a “pretty desperate” attempt.

The officials acknowledged that Russia may have made progress on Bakhmut, but added that it could be “measured in meters”.

“The Russians, for the moment, although they tried for six months, with a large number of soldiers and heavy losses, were not able to take the city and their advances were very, very slow until ‘now,’ officials said at a press briefing. held Wednesday.

In Tuesday’s video, Wagner’s fighters had ceded control of some areas around Bakhmut to the Russian military.

“We handed over the flanks to the MoD. MoD units, including airborne troops, today took control of the left and right flanks,” he said. “That is why Zaliznyanskoye, Nikolaevka and other settlements, which were stormed by units of Wagner’s PMC in the previous months, are the responsibility of airborne troops and other units of the Ministry of Defense.”