Andriy Yermak, who is chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky, made the remarks on Monday, The Kyiv Independent website reported.
Yermak urged compatriots to “calmly react to fakes inventing a victory, which does not exist in reality,” adding that “Bakhmut is Ukraine.”
Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern military command, told the Reuters news agency: "Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that."
Cherevatyi added: "They raised the flag over some kind of toilet. They attached it to the side of who knows what, hung their rag and said they had captured the city. Well good, let them think they've taken it."
“The enemy is weakening and trying to cover up its failures with new fakes about the capture of Bakhmut,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s Land Forces chief, wrote on the Telegram social messaging app after visiting the Bakhmut sector on Monday, as cited by The Kyiv Independent.
The comments by Ukrainian officials came after Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Russian state-backed private paramilitary company Wagner Group, claimed that his forces had raised the Russian flag on Bakhmut City Hall.
The Wagner chief said on Sunday that Bakhmut had been “legally taken” and the Ukrainian forces were “concentrated in the western area” of the city.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said fighting was raging around Bakhmut City Hall, as well as in other nearby towns, Reuters reported.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in its evening update on Monday that Bakhmut, alongside Avdiivka, Marinka, and their outskirts, remained the "epicentre" of the ongoing fighting, according to The Kyiv Independent.
The Ukrainian army successfully repelled over 45 Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region on Monday, the General Staff reported.
Russia has been trying to capture the mining city and logistics hub of Bakhmut for over eight months, stepping up its efforts in the autumn, according to news outlets.
Largely reduced to ruins, the city is now nearly emptied of its pre-war population of 70,000 people, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Russia launches drone attack on Ukraine’s Odesa overnight
Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s strategic southern port of Odesa and the surrounding province with unmanned aerial vehicles overnight on April 4, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported.
An unspecified number of drones were downed by Ukraine’s air defence units, according to local officials.
“The enemy has just struck Odesa and the Odesa district with attack UAVs,” local authorities said in a statement on Facebook.
“There is damage,” the statement said, without providing further details, The Guardian reported.
Meanwhile, the Odesa Regional State Administration warned that a second wave of attacks was possible and called on residents to heed the air raid sirens, taking shelter underground if possible, according to The Kyiv Independent.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reported at around 1 a.m. that its correspondents had heard an explosion in Odesa.
On March 23, Ukraine's Air Force downed two Russian missiles over the Odesa province.
The missiles were launched from the Black Sea using Su-35 fighter jets, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Overall, Ukraine’s air defence shot down 14 Iranian-made Shahed-136 and Shahad-131 drones overnight on April 4, according to officials.
The UAVs, reportedly up to 17, were likely launched against Ukraine from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
There was no information on casualties or damage, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Tuesday is day 405 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, The Kyiv Independent, Reuters, The Guardian