Zelensky: Russia has not captured Bakhmut

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian forces have not captured the city of Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, where a fierce battle has raged for months. Zelensky spoke at a press conference in Hiroshima, in Japan, where he is attending the G7 summit.

We’re holding out and fighting thanks to the courage of our fighters and our own smarts. We don’t leave people to die. For us, people are a treasure, the most important thing we have.

There are no misunderstandings. I am painfully aware of what’s going on in Bakhmut. And we’re all painfully aware of why it’s being done. I can’t share our military’s tactical views with you, but we all understand that there’s just a little more, and then we’ll win.

Our military has completed a very important task today, and they’re in Bakhmut. I won’t share exact locations, but it speaks to the fact that today, Bakhmut has not been captured by the Russian Federation. There can be no second or third interpretation.

According to Ukrainskaya Pravda, Zelensky’s remarks at the press conference clarified earlier comments he had made during a side meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden. Press took Zelensky’s comments to Biden as confirmation that Bakhmut had fallen.

Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin responded to Zelensky’s remarks at the G7 summit. He continues to insist that his fighters have fully captured Bakhmut. Prigozhin says there are no living fighters from Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the city, since Wagner Group has stopped taking prisoners. “There is a huge quantity of Ukrainian military corpses,” Prigozhin says.

At the G7 summit, President Biden equivocated about whether Bakhmut has been captured, but he said that Russia has sustained around 100,000 losses in the battle for the city.