Russia's President Vladimir Putin has instructed a former commander of the Wagner mercenary group to oversee volunteer units in the war in Ukraine.

The Russian presidential office announced on Friday that the president met with former Wagner commander Andrei Troshev at the Kremlin the previous day.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Troshev now works for the defense ministry.

In the meeting, Putin noted that Troshev himself had been fighting in a volunteer unit for more than a year.

The president also said Troshev knows about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that the combat work goes in the best and most successful way.

The meeting is widely viewed as the Kremlin's attempt to show that the Wagner group fighters have been under control of the government since their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in a plane crash in August.

Prigozhin staged a short-lived mutiny in June.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military said that several hundred former Wagner fighters have been fighting in the contested city of Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donetsk.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on Friday that its forces continue counteroffensives in Bakhmut and other cities, taking back areas occupied by Russian troops one after another.

Britain's defense ministry says in its intelligence update, "The exact status of the redeploying personnel is unclear, but it is likely individuals have transferred to parts of the official Russian Ministry of Defence forces" and other private mercenary companies.

The ministry also says that many Wagner fighters will be "familiar with current front line and local Ukrainian tactics, having fought over the same terrain last winter."