No confirmed advances by Russian forces in Bakhmut, says think tank, high casualties in Donetsk as war rages

Ukraine and Russia have reported inflicting heavy losses as the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut rages on.

Amid the fighting, Russia’s advance seems to have stalled in Moscow’s campaign to capture the city, a think tank said, reported news agency AP.

As the slow, long-lasting and bloody fight for the small town of Bakhmut continues, both Ukraine and Russia on Sunday reported high casualties in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Reuters said in a report.

Russia and Ukraine both claimed that hundreds of enemy troops had been killed in the previous 24 hours in the fight for Bakhmut. Moscow has been trying to take the eastern Ukrainian city for months in a grinding war of attrition.

Both sides have admitted to suffering and inflicting significant losses in Bakhmut but the exact number of casualties is difficult to independently verify, the report said.

Here are the top developments in Russia-Ukraine war

There have been no confirmed advances by Russian forces in Bakhmut, according to the think tank the Institute for the Study of War. The report published late Saturday said that despite Russian forces from the paramilitary Wagner Group launching continued ground attacks in the city, there is no evidence that they made any progress, CNN reported.

“Russian forces did not make any confirmed advances within Bakhmut on March 11. Ukrainian and Russian sources continue to report heavy fighting in the city, but Wagner Group fighters are likely to become increasingly pinned in urban areas, such as the AZOM industrial complex, and are therefore finding it difficult to make significant advances,” the ISW said.

While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces suffered more than 1,100 dead in less than a week of battles near Bakhmut, Russian forces claimed they had killed more than 220 Ukrainian soldiers over the past 24 hours, reported Reuters.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were also conducting more military operations in the Donetsk region. Donestsk with Luhansk make up the Donbas region.

“In the Donetsk direction… more than 220 Ukrainian servicemen, an infantry fighting vehicle, three armoured fighting vehicles, seven vehicles, as well as a D-30 howitzer were destroyed during the day,” the ministry said.

Heavy fighting and shelling has been ongoing in various parts of Donetsk. Russian troops deployed in Russia-controlled city of Donetsk said the city was shelled four times by Ukranian soldiers, affecting residential areas and damaging power lines, Reuters reported.

Svetlana Boiko, 66, who was wounded in the Donetsk shelling told Reuters that shelling “used to fly over without ever hitting us”.

The mining city of Bakhmut is located in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, one of four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed not to retreat.

Russian defense chief Sergei Shoigu called Bakhmut an important defensive hub for Ukrainian forces and capturing it allow Russian troops to push “deep into Ukraine’s defensive lines.” If Russia manages to capture Bakhmut, it would bring Moscow closer to its goal of controlling the whole of Donetsk region, one of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine annexed by Russia last September.

Before the invasion, there were about 70,000 people living in Bakhmut. The industrial city, with a prewar population of some 71,000, was known for its salt and gypsum mines, The Washington Post said in a report.Ukraine has also given Bakhmut political significance, with President Zelenskyy making the city an emblem of resistance, the BBC reported.