Recent assessments from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) indicate that Russian forces are pushing into the central area of Artemovsk, known in Ukrainian as Bakhmut. The briefing describes movements by units connected to a private military company and notes a shift in local governance as changes take hold in the city’s core.
The ISW report states that fighters affiliated with the Wagner group managed to advance toward the heart of the city and assume control of the Artemovsk city administration building. The analysts describe a night operation during early April in which the center of the city experienced a notable shift in on-the-ground control.
According to the ISW, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin marked the moment by raising the Russian flag bearing an inscription honoring the murdered blogger Maxim Fomin, also known as Vladlen Tatarsky, at the site of the captured administration building.
ISW further quotes a local businessman who contends that Artemovsk was taken through a legal process. This framing highlights the contested narrative around the legitimacy of events on the ground and how different actors present the same developments.
Earlier statements from Prigozhin claimed that Russian forces had “legally” secured Artemovsk. He asserted that Ukrainian forces remained in the western sections of the city, suggesting a division of control within the urban landscape and underscoring the complexity of reporting in active conflict zones.