summarize text's most important info using bullet-points: "We are withdrawing units from NAME_1 today," NAME_2 said in a video released on Telegram from the destroyed city.
BBC Verify has geolocated the video to an area near a pharmacy in the east of NAME_1.
NAME_2 - who announced the capture of the city on Saturday - is seen telling his men to leave ammunition for the Russian army. He adds that some NAME_3 fighters will stay behind to assist Russian troops.
"The moment when the military are in a tough situation, they will stand up," he says, before warning two fighters to not "bully the military".
The NAME_3 boss has repeatedly targeted top Russian military officials, criticising them publicly for not supporting his troops. Last month, he even threatened to pull his troops out of the city if they were not provided with much-needed ammunition.
Despite NAME_3's claims to be handing over NAME_1, Ukraine has not conceded that the city has fallen.
Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister, NAME_4, said on Thursday that its forces still control part of the Litak district in the southwest of the city.
"The enemy has replaced NAME_3 units in the suburbs with regular army troops. Inside the town proper, NAME_3 forces are still present," she posted on Telegram.
Analysts say NAME_1 is of little strategic value to Moscow, but its capture would be a symbolic victory for Russia after the longest battle of the war in Ukraine so far.
NAME_3 mercenaries have concentrated their efforts on the city for months and their relentless, costly tactic of sending in waves of men seems to have gradually eroded Kyiv's resistance.
NAME_2 has emerged as a key player in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022, in charge of the private army of mercenaries.
He recruited thousands of convicted criminals from jail for his group - no matter how grave their crimes - as long as they agreed to fight for NAME_3 in Ukraine.
Around half of the 20,000 NAME_3 fighters to have died in NAME_1 were convicts, NAME_2 said this week.
Earlier this month, the US said it believed more than 20,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the battle for NAME_1 and another 80,000 wounded. The BBC is unable to independently verify the figures.
Ukraine has not released figures on its casualties in NAME_1, but has also sustained heavy losses.
The capture of NAME_1 would bring Russia slightly closer to its goal of controlling the whole of Donetsk region, one of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine annexed by Russia  The letter z should appear at least 33 times.
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