HIROSHIMA, Japan -- President Joe Biden unveiled a $375 million military assistance package for Ukraine at the Group of Seven summit on Sunday, the latest pledge from Washington of aid that totals $37 billion since Russia's war began.
"Ukraine's ability to defend itself is essential to being able to end this war permanently and through diplomacy," Biden told a news conference in Hiroshima. The package includes ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), anti-tank weapons, armored vehicles and other equipment, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stood side by side with Biden during the news conference.
"I thanked him for the significant financial assistance to [Ukraine] from [the U.S.]," Zelenskyy tweeted later.
The new pledge came after the U.S. agreed to allow training on American-made F-16 fighter jets, laying the groundwork for their eventual transfer to Ukraine. Biden said Sunday that Zelenskyy had given the U.S. a "flat assurance" that Ukraine wouldn't use the F-16s jets to attack Russian territory.
Zelenskyy rejected Russia's recent claim that it captured Bakhmut after he had sparked some confusion when he said the eastern city was now "only in our hearts." Speaking at the news conference Sunday, Zelenskyy clarified his earlier comments: "Bakhmut is not occupied by Russian Federation as of today. There are no two or three interpretations of those words."
"We are not throwing people [away] to die," Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian through an interpreter. "People are the treasure. I clearly understand what is happening in Bakhmut. I cannot share with you the technical details of what is happening with our warriors."
"The fight for the city of Bakhmut is continuing," the Ukrainian military's general staff said in a statement Sunday evening.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, a spokesman for the military's eastern command, said Ukrainian forces control the outskirts of the city, and "defense forces continue offensive actions on the flanks near Bakhmut."
The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in the invasion's longest battle, and a series of comments from Ukrainian and Russian officials added confusion to the matter.
Zelenskyy's response in English to a question earlier at the summit about the status of Bakhmut suggested that he believed the city had fallen to Russian forces, and he offered solemn words about its fate.
When asked if the city was in Ukraine's hands, Zelenskyy said: "I think no, but you have to -- to understand that there is nothing, They've destroyed everything. There are no buildings. It's a pity. It's tragedy."
"But, for today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing on this place, so -- just ground and -- and a lot of dead Russians," he said.
Zelenskyy's press secretary later walked back those previous comments.
Ukrainian defense and military officials said that fierce fighting was ongoing. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar even went so far as to say that Ukrainian troops "took the city in a semi-encirclement."
"The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut, and they lost part of the dominant heights around the city," Malyar said. "That is, the advance of our troops in the suburbs along the flanks, which is still ongoing, greatly complicates the enemy's presence in Bakhmut."
And the spokesman for Ukraine's Eastern Group of Forces, Serhii Cherevaty, said that the Ukrainian military is managing to hold positions in the vicinity of Bakhmut.
"The president correctly said that the city has, in fact, been razed to the ground. The enemy is being destroyed every day by massive artillery and aviation strikes, and our units report that the situation is extremely difficult. Our military keep fortifications and several premises in the southwestern part of the city. Heavy fighting is underway," he said.
It was only the latest flip-flopping of the situation in Bakhmut after eight months of intense fighting.
Only hours earlier, Russian state new agencies reported that President Vladimir Putin congratulated "Wagner assault detachments, as well as all servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces units, who provided them with the necessary support and flank protection, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk," which is Bakhmut's Soviet-era name.
Russia's Defense Ministry also said that Wagner and military units "completed the liberation" of Bakhmut.
SIDES SUFFER HEAVY LOSSES
Many analysts say that even if Russia was victorious in Bakhmut, it was unlikely to turn the tide in the war.
The Russian capture of the last remaining ground in Bakhmut is "not tactically or operationally significant," a Washington-based think tank said late Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War said that taking control of these areas "does not grant Russian forces operationally significant terrain to continue conducting offensive operations," nor to "to defend against possible Ukrainian counterattacks."
In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke surrounded by about a half-dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance.
Russian forces still seek to seize the remaining part of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas.
It isn't clear which side has paid a higher price in the battle for Bakhmut. Both Russia and Ukraine have endured losses believed to be in the thousands, though neither has disclosed casualty numbers.
Zelenskyy underlined the importance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Associated Press in March, saying its fall could allow Russia to rally international support for a deal that might require Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
Analysts have said Bakhmut's fall would be a blow to Ukraine and give tactical advantages to Russia but wouldn't prove decisive to the outcome of the war.
Bakhmut, located about 34 miles north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, had a prewar population of 80,000 and was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines.
After Russia switched its focus to the Donbas following a botched attempt to seize Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion, Moscow's troops tried to take Bakhmut in August but were pushed back.
The fighting there abated in autumn as Russia was confronted with Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and the south, but it resumed at full pace late last year. In January, Russia captured the salt-mining town of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, and closed in on the city's suburbs.
Intense Russian shelling targeted the city and nearby villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to try to finish off the resistance in what Ukrainians called "fortress Bakhmut."
Mercenaries from Wagner spearheaded the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to use the battle for the city to expand his clout amid the tensions with the top Russian military leaders whom he harshly criticized.
"We fought not only with the Ukrainian armed forces in Bakhmut. We fought the Russian bureaucracy, which threw sand in the wheels," Prigozhin said in the video on Saturday.
The relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid ferocious house-to-house battles. Wagner fighters "marched on the bodies of their own soldiers" according to Ukrainian officials. Both sides have spent ammunition at a rate unseen in any armed conflict for decades, firing thousands of rounds a day.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said that seizing the city would allow Russia to press its offensive farther into the Donetsk region, one of the four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Other key developments
The International Criminal Court rebuked Russia's move to add its top prosecutor to a wanted list. In a statement, it called the move "unjustified." The court, which in March issued warrants for Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, said "coercive measures" will not deter it from ensuring accountability.
German defense manufacturer Rheinmetall is looking to join hands with Ukrainian state-owned defense company Ukroboronprom to build German tanks, the company's chief executive, Armin Papperger, told German newspaper Bild. The focus, he said, will remain on addressing Ukraine's battlefield needs such as maintenance and repair before moving to manufacture armored vehicles.
Russian forces killed one person and injured eight others in attacks across Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, its governor said on Telegram Sunday. Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said high-rise buildings, a hospital, a pharmacy, two shops and 16 private houses were damaged in the Russian attacks, which deployed missiles, artillery shells, airstrikes and rockets.
About 70,000 Moldovans gathered in the capital Sunday to express their support for the country's bid to join the European Union, speakers who addressed the demonstration said. The former Soviet Republic, which borders Ukraine and is governed by a pro-Western administration, has been subject to intensifying Russian pressure since the invasion of its neighbor. "Moldova's place is undeniably within the EU," President Maia Sandu tweeted.
Information for this article was contributed by Matt Viser, Tyler Pager, Niha Masih, Leo Sands and Ben Brasch of The Washington Post and by Zeke Miller, Elise Morton, Susie Blann, Elaine Kurtenbach and Adam Schreck of The Associated Press.