The head of the Wagner mercenary group spearheading the Russian assault in Bakhmut says his troops have taken full control of the city.

Home to 70,000 people before the invasion, it has become the stage for the longest and bloodiest battle of the war so far.

Yevgeny Prigozhin made the claim – as yet unverified and denied by Ukraine – in a video wearing combat fatigues and flanked by soldiers holding Russian flags and Wagner banners.

Amid the sound of distant explosions, he said: ‘Today at 12pm, Bakhmut was completely taken. We completely took the whole city, from house to house.’

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a video statement from an unknown location (Picture: AP)

Prigozhin added that his forces would withdraw from the city from May 25 for rest and retraining.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi dismissed the claims, saying: ‘This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut.’

The city has been the focus of the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is nearly at the end of its 15th month.

New satellite photos have revealed the scale of the destruction there, with apartment buildings, schools, shops, as well as the city’s theatre reduced to smouldering ruins.

A demolished school and smouldering apartment buildings in Bakhmut, Ukraine (Pictures: Maxar Technologies via AP)

The city is the scene of the deadliest fighting since WWII (Picture: Maxar Technologies via AP)

Smoke rises from buildings obliterated by artillery fire (Picture: AP)

Volodymyr Zelensky has met world leaders in Japan, where Joe Biden gave the green light for Western allies to transfer US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

Mocking the two leaders, Prigozhin sneered as Zelensky: ‘Today when you see Biden, kiss him on the top of his head, say hi to him from me.’

He then went on to launch another diatribe against Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, saying that because of their ‘whims’, ‘five times more guys died than they should have’.

His victory claim followed fierce fighting around the city in the past week in which Ukraine said it pushed back some Russian forces.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said it was ‘highly likely’ Russia had deployed up to several battalions to reinforce the Bakhmut sector, following Ukrainian tactical gains on the flanks of the town.

It said this represented a ‘notable commitment by the Russian command’.

‘Russia’s leadership likely continue to see capturing Bakhmut as the key immediate war aim which would allow them to claim some degree of success in the conflict,’ the MoD said on Twitter.

Prigozhin has himself acknowledged it had no strategic significance, but it took on huge symbolic importance for both sides because of the sheer intensity of the fighting and the scale of losses.

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Yevgeny Prigozhin made the claim in a video in which he also mocked Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden.