Kiev, 22 May 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Ukrainian soldiers are still in the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Kiev said on Monday, following claims from Russia that its forces had taken over the entire city after months of fighting.

"Our troops control certain objects in Bakhmut and the sector with family houses in the district 'Plane,'" deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram on Monday.

Russian troops were searching the districts they had captured for Ukrainian soldiers, she added. Fighting continues around the hills to the north and south of the city, according to the deputy minister.

Maliar said Russian troops are bringing in additional reserves. "The defence of Bakhmut is fulfilling its military task," she stressed, adding that huge losses had been inflicted on Moscow's troops and their attack potential had been lowered.

Bakhmut in the Donetsk region has been contested for months. At the weekend, Moscow announced the complete conquest of the heavily destroyed city, which once had 70,000 inhabitants. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky swiftly disputed the claim.

In the Russian border region of Belgorod near Ukraine, meanwhile, two people were injured by shelling, according to official reports.

A man and a woman were hospitalized after mine explosions, the governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on his Telegram channel.

Gladkov accused Ukraine of entering Russian territory with a "sabotage squad."

Since Monday morning, there have been reports on social networks about the shelling of areas near the border, including a border crossing.

The Ukrainian military intelligence service also reported fighting in the region. Russian citizens there were rising up against the Putin government, military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian television.

During the course of the day, the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhzhya was disconnected and then reconnected to the national electricity grid.

A high-voltage line was damaged by shelling earlier on Monday. As a result, the cooling systems had to be operated with diesel generators.

Several hours later, the Ukrainian power grid operator said the plant was reconnected.

Europe's largest nuclear power plant in the Zaporizhzhya region came under Moscow's control in early March 2022.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, wrote on Twitter on Monday that the "nuclear safety situation at the plant [is] extremely vulnerable. We must agree to protect [the] plant now."

The power plant is one of the expected targets of a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Photo: Telegram screenshot