Volodymyr Zelensky made the remark in a video address to Ukrainians on Sunday night, the Reuters news agency reported.
The president said: “I am grateful to our warriors who are fighting near Avdiivka, Maryinka, near Bakhmut... Especially Bakhmut!”
“It's especially hot there!,” he said.
Zelensky’s words came after the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that his forces had raised the Russian flag over the administration building in the city.
Prigozhin, in an audio message posted on the Telegram social messaging app, said: "From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western parts."
Prigozhin has issued some premature success claims before, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper noted.
There was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands, according to Reuters.
Russian troops have for months been seeking to seize Bakhmut, which the Kremlin regards as a vital step in its drive to gain complete control over Ukraine’s eastern industrial region of Donbas, news outlets reported.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram the situation around the city was “tense” with Ukrainian forces continuing to defend their positions and Russian troops launching attacks with scant regard to their losses, according to Reuters.
Maliar said: “"The situation in Bakhmut remains tense.”
She added: “But our every military decision and our every step is carefully considered. The command of the Khortytsia Operational Strategic Group is working in the combat zone and is fully aware of the circumstances on the ground. They are responding to the current situation with great competence, and by taking into consideration all circumstances, goals, and the principle of military expediency,” as quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda website.
Last month, Zelensky and his military commanders agreed to maintain the defence of Bakhmut amid public discussion over whether it was best to remain in the city or adopt other defensive positions, the Reuters news agency reported.
Russian shelling kills eight people in Ukraine’s Sumy, Donetsk regions
In the video address on Sunday night, Ukraine’s president said that two people had been killed in a Russian mortar attack near the town of Konotop, in the northeastern Sumy region.
He also confirmed that a Russian missile strike on the city of Kostiantynivka in the eastern Donetsk region had killed six people, with a further eleven wounded.
Bomb kills Russian pro-war blogger in St Petersburg cafe
Vladlen Tatarsky, a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger, has been killed in an explosion at a cafe in downtown St Petersburg, The Guardian reported on Sunday, citing Russia’s interior ministry.
A bomb was hidden in a statue presented to Tatarsky in a box as a gift, according to Russian media.
Another 30 people were injured, The Guardian reported.
The blast appears to be the second targeted killing of a high-profile figure connected to Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine since it began just over a year ago, according to Britain’s The Times newspaper.
In August Daria Dugina, the daughter of the prominent Russian ultranationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, was killed in a car bomb outside Moscow.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, described the incident as “domestic terrorism”. He said in a tweet: “Spiders are eating each other in a jar.”
Like Wagner’s Prigozhin, Tatarsky criticised Russia’s handling of the war in Ukraine, and the army’s old equipment, The Times reported.
Monday is day 404 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, Reuters, president.gov.ua, The Times, The Guardian, Ukrainska Pravda