KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine&nbsp;said on Sunday that its forces were still advancing around the edges of&nbsp;Bakhmut, aiming to&nbsp;encircle&nbsp;the ruined eastern&nbsp;city&nbsp;after Moscow congratulated the Wagner private army and&nbsp;Russian troops for capturing it.
Russia&nbsp;said on Saturday it had completely taken&nbsp;Bakhmut, which, if confirmed, would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war.&nbsp;Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his regular troops and the Wagner group.
On Sunday, however, a top Ukrainian general said Kyiv's forces still controlled what he accepted was an "insignificant" part of&nbsp;Bakhmut, although that would allow them to enter the&nbsp;city&nbsp;when the situation changed.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a Telegram post that Kyiv's troops were advancing on&nbsp;Russian forces in the suburbs and getting closer to a "tactical&nbsp;encirclement" of the&nbsp;city, formerly home to 70,000 people.
Syrskyi, the commander of&nbsp;Ukraine's ground forces, said on Sunday he had visited front-line positions near&nbsp;Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for more than nine months. Syrskyi's assertion that Ukrainian forces were continuing their advance along the flanks of the&nbsp;city&nbsp;was echoed by&nbsp;Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar.
"Our forces have taken the&nbsp;city&nbsp;in a semi-encirclement, which gives us the opportunity to destroy the enemy ... the enemy has to defend himself in the part of the&nbsp;city&nbsp;he controls," Maliar said on Telegram.
Ukrainian troops were still defending industrial and infrastructure facilities and had claimed part of the overlooking heights, Maliar said.
In the past 24 hours, the&nbsp;Russian offensive around&nbsp;Bakhmut&nbsp;has not let up, including air strikes on the&nbsp;city&nbsp;and the village of Ivanivske on its western approaches, said a statement by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Later on Sunday, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message on Telegram that his group's job was done and his forces would leave the conflict zone within days.
"Wagner today captured no territory. We have captured all the territory we promised to capture, right up to the last centimetre," Prigozhin said. "As we stated yesterday. We are handing over our positions to (Russia's) Defence Ministry and on the 25th (of May) we are leaving the conflict zone."
Bakhmut&nbsp;has no strategic value according to military analysts, although Moscow has said that capturing it would be a stepping stone towards advancing deeper into the industrial region of Donbas it claims&nbsp;to have annexed from&nbsp;Ukraine.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports by either side.
ZELENSKIY COMPARES&nbsp;BAKHMUT&nbsp;TO 'RUINED HIROSHIMA'
Over the past week, Ukrainian forces have made their most rapid gains for six months on&nbsp;Bakhmut's northern and southern flanks, with&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;acknowledging some setbacks for its troops.
Kyiv&nbsp;says&nbsp;its aim has been to draw&nbsp;Russian forces from elsewhere on the front into the&nbsp;city, to inflict high casualties there and weaken Moscow's defensive line elsewhere ahead of a planned major Ukrainian counteroffensive.
U.S. President Joe Biden said&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;had suffered more than 100,000 casualties in&nbsp;Bakhmut, the destruction of which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy compared to the U.S. World War Two atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, in Japan.
"I'll tell you openly: Photographs of ruined Hiroshima absolutely remind me of&nbsp;Bakhmut&nbsp;and other similar settlements. Nothing left alive, all the buildings ruined," he said as he attended a Group of Seven summit in the Japanese&nbsp;city&nbsp;on Sunday.
"Bakhmut&nbsp;has not been captured by the&nbsp;Russian Federation as of today. There are no two or three interpretations of this," he told reporters.
In his nightly video address, on Sunday aboard an aircraft, Zelenskiy said: "The world hears our position. Defence, security guarantees, the recovery of all our territories and all our people, justice, the implementation of our peace plan."&nbsp;
Taking&nbsp;Bakhmut&nbsp;- which&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;refers to by its Soviet-era name of Artyomovsk - would represent Moscow's first big victory in the conflict in more than 10 months.
The battle for&nbsp;Bakhmut&nbsp;has shown a deepening split between Wagner, which has recruited thousands of convicts from&nbsp;Russian prisons, and the regular&nbsp;Russian military. For two weeks, Prigozhin has been issuing daily video and audio messages denouncing&nbsp;Russia's military leadership, often in expletive-laden rants.
Leaders of the world's richest democracies at the G7 summit said they would not back down from supporting&nbsp;Ukraine.
Zelenskiy, who held a private meeting with Biden in Hiroshima, said he was confident Kyiv would receive F-16 fighter jets from the West after months of lobbying for the planes.
Biden said F-16s would not have helped Ukrainian forces with regard to&nbsp;Bakhmut&nbsp;but could "make a big difference in terms of being able to deal with what is coming down the road".
(Writing by Alexandra Hudson, Giles Elgood and Grant McCool; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, William Maclean and Bill Berkrot)

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Ukraine aims to encircle Bakhmut as Russia says it captures city