Russian mercenary boss says video shows his fighters near centre of Ukraine's Bakhmut

The founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary force on Thursday published a video showing his fighters in what he said was almost the centre of Bakhmut, the small Ukrainian city Wagner has been fighting to capture for months.

The founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary force on Thursday published a video showing his fighters in what he said was almost the centre of Bakhmut, the small Ukrainian city Wagner has been fighting to capture for months. Wagner has spearheaded Russia's assault on Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of 75,000, and has made steady but incremental progress around the city's outskirts in recent months, endangering Ukraine's supply lines.

In a post on Telegram, the press service of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's founder, cited him as saying: "The lads are mucking about, shooting home video. They brought this from Bakhmut this morning, practically the centre of the city." Reuters was not immediately able to geolocate the footage.

In the video, uniformed men are shown lifting a Wagner banner atop a semi-ruined multi-storey building. One of the men is shown dancing and holding a guitar, a reference to Wagner's informal nickname of "the musicians". Ukrainian forces were reported to be hanging on to their positions in Bakhmut early on Thursday, but to be under constant attack from Russian troops seeking to claim their first major victory for more than half a year.