The commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, said his troops still control only an "insignificant" portion of Bakhmut. The spokesman for the eastern group of Ukrainian armed forces, Serhiy Cherevaty, said that "the Ukrainian army does not rule out that the armed forces may withdraw from BakhMut" The founder of the Wagner mercenary battalion, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, downplayed the role of the Russian regular army in the claimed capture.