TOP HEADLINES

• The head of the Wagner mercenary group says his troops have raised the Russian flag over Bakhmut's administrative building, claiming that the strategic Ukrainian city had been captured "from a legal point of view." READ MORE BELOW

• However, Ukrainian troops are still fighting in the city's west, and Kyiv's military said Russian forces were "very far" from capturing the strategic Donetsk town.

• Six civilians were killed and eight wounded in the shelling of Kostiantynivka, a town 20 km west of Bakhmut, according to Ukranian officials. 

• Russia is set to move its tactical nuclear weapons close to Belarus' western border with NATO member Poland, according to the Russian envoy to Minsk.

• Russia has detained a woman suspected of being involved in the assassination of a prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky at a St Petersburg cafe.

• The Kremlin described the bomb attack at the cafe as a "terrorist act", citing Russia's Anti-Terrorism Committee report saying there was evidence linking Ukraine's secret service and "agents" with ties to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to the bombing.

• NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Finland will join NATO on Tuesday, a step that he said would make Finland safer and the alliance stronger. 

• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to arrange the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, whom Russia had accused of spying.

• Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to visit Poland, one of Kyiv's most vocal supporters in the conflict, on Wednesday. 

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree creating a special fund "aimed at ensuring a decent life" for soldiers fighting in Ukraine and their families.

• German Economy and Energy Minister Robert Habeck is making a surprise visit to Kyiv to discuss Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.

IN DETAIL 

Kyiv mocks Russia's 'legal capture' of Bakhmut

Ukraine's military said its troops were involved in fierce fighting with Russian forces around the administration building of Bakhmut, deriding Russian claims that mercenary fighters had captured the besieged Donetsk city. 

The head of the Wagner mercenary force, which has led Russia's campaign to encircle and capture Bakhmut, said on Sunday his troops had raised a Russian flag over the building in the city center.

Yevgeny Prigozhin said that Ukrainian troops were still holding some positions in the town's west, but said that "from a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken." A Ukrainian spokesperson said the Russians had raised a victory flag not over the building but over "some kind of toilet."

The battle for Bakhmut has been one of the deadliest of the conflict, with thousands of casualties on both sides and much of the eastern city destroyed. Day-to-day, the front lines in the city move backwards and forwards as Russian and Ukrainian forces fight from street to street.

The Ukrainian military said on Monday that fighting was still going on in Bakhmut, with clashes still taking place around the city council building. Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for the eastern military command, added that Russian claims to have captured the city were false. 

"Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that, to put it mildly," he told Reuters. "They raised the flag over some kind of toilet. They attached it to the side of who knows what, hung their rag and said they had captured the city. Well good, let them think they've taken it," Cherevatyi said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his Sunday night video address, thanked the soldiers fighting in Bakhmut, as well as in nearby Avdiivka and Maryinka, towns which surround the regional capital of Donetsk. 

"Especially Bakhmut. It is especially hot there," he said.

The mining city and logistics hub, which lies on the edge of the part of Donetsk province that is under Russian occupation, has been the center of frontline fighting for many months. Russian forces are hoping to take the town and use it as a launch pad to make further gains in Ukraine's east, with the ultimate goal of seizing Ukraine's industrial Donbas region. 

Ukrainian military commanders have said their own counteroffensive, which will be bolstered by newly delivered Western tanks and other weapons, is not far off. However, they have stressed the importance of holding Bakhmut to tie up Russian troops and stop Moscow from launching fresh attacks elsewhere in Donetsk. 

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