The Latest Breaking News from Yevgeny Prigozhin

It is still unclear whether the months-long battle for control of Bakhmut has ended, with claims by Moscow that the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group had finally captured the city being countered by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russia said on Monday it was battling a cross-border incursion by saboteurs who burst through the frontier from Ukraine, in what appeared to be one of the biggest attacks of its kind since the war began 15 months ago.

Russia claims it has won control of Ukraine’s eastern city of Bakhmut after a grinding nine-month conflict in which tens of thousands of fighters have died

The commander of Ukraine's ground forces says he has visited front-line positions near Bakhmut after Russian officials said the city had been captured.

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group said on Sunday that his forces had captured all the territory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as promised and would leave the conflict zone later this week.

The symbolic importance of the small city in Ukraine’s east now far outweighs any strategic value for either side.

Ukraine said on Sunday that its forces were still advancing around the edges of Bakhmut, aiming to encircle the ruined eastern city after Moscow congratulated the Wagner private army and Russian troops for capturing it.

‘Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing ... just ruins and dead Russians,’ says Ukraine’s president

Ukrainian military officials say that soldiers are still engaging Russian forces in fierce battles in and around Bakhmut