KIEV, Ukraine — Russia’s advance appears to have stalled in Moscow’s campaign to seize the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a leading think tank said in an assessment of the longest ground battle of the war.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said there was no confirmed advances by Russian forces in Bakhmut. Russian forces and units of the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group paramilitary continued to launch ground attacks in the city, but there was no evidence they were able to make any progress, the ISW said.
Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that the situation in Bakhmut was “difficult, very difficult, with the enemy fighting for every meter”.
The ISW report released on Saturday quoted spokesman for the Eastern Group of Ukrainian Armed Forces Serhii Cherevaty as saying fighting in the Bakhmut region had been more intense this week than the previous one. According to Cherevaty, there have been 23 clashes in the city over the past 24 hours.
The ISW report follows claims of Russian advances earlier this week. Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday paramilitary units from the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group had captured most of eastern Bakhmut, with a river running through the town now marking the front line of fighting. The assessment highlighted that Russia’s attack will be difficult to sustain without significant personnel losses.
The mining town of Bakhmut is located in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, one of four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last year. The Russian military launched a campaign to take control of Bakhmut in August, and both sides have suffered staggering casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed not to back down.
In its latest report, Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the impact of heavy Russian military casualties in Ukraine varies dramatically across Russia. According to the British military intelligence update, Moscow and St. Petersburg remained “relatively unscathed”, particularly among members of the Russian elite.
But in many eastern regions of Russia, the death rate as a percentage of the population is “30 to 40 times higher than in Moscow,” the UK ministry said. It added that ethnic minorities are often hardest hit. In the southern region of Astrakhan, for example, about “75% of the victims come from the Kazakh and Tatar minorities”.
Russia’s mounting casualties are reflected in a loss of state control over the country’s information sphere, the Institute for War Studies said. The think tank said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed “the infighting in the Kremlin’s inner circle” and that the Kremlin has effectively relinquished control of the country’s information space, with Putin unable to regain control.
The ISW saw Zakharova’s comments, made at a forum on the “practical and technological aspects of information and cognitive warfare in modern realities” in Moscow, as “notable” and in line with the think tank’s long-standing assessments of the “deteriorating Kremlin regime and control dynamics of information space.”
In a separate statement, Zakharova said on Sunday that the next round of talks on extending the Black Sea Grains Agreement would take place in Geneva on Monday. A Russian delegation is expected to meet senior UN officials. The deal currently expires on March 18th.
The war deal, which unblocked grain shipments from Ukraine and helped dampen rising food prices around the world, was last extended by four months in November.
The deal, which Ukraine and Russia signed on July 22 in separate accords with the United Nations and Turkey, established a safe Black Sea shipping corridor and inspection procedures to allay concerns that cargo ships could carry weapons or launch attacks.
Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other foods to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where millions of impoverished people do not have enough to eat. Before the war, Russia was also the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers.
A loss of those supplies following Russia’s sweeping invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had pushed up global food prices and raised concerns of a hunger crisis in poorer countries.
Zelenskyy said Sunday that he posthumously bestowed the highest national title, Hero of Ukraine, on a soldier believed to have been killed by Russian speakers. Zelenskyi identified him as Oleksandr Matsiyevsky, although the Ukrainian military had previously given the soldier a different name pending final confirmation.
A short video that emerged this month and sparked a national outcry in Ukraine showed a man standing in a wooded area smoking a cigarette and shouting “Honor to Ukraine” before being shot dead. High-ranking Ukrainian officials claimed, without providing further evidence, that the man was an unarmed prisoner of war who was killed by Russian soldiers.
Matsievsky was “a Ukrainian warrior. A man who will forever be known and remembered,” said Zelenskyy. Ukraine’s national security service, the SBU, said Matsievsky served as a sniper and was shot dead on December 30.
Ukrainian authorities reported Sunday morning that Russian attacks over the past day in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Kherson regions killed at least five people and wounded another seven, local Ukrainian authorities reported Sunday morning.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said that two people were killed in the region, one in the town of Kostyantynivka and one in the village of Tonenke. Four civilians were injured.
Also in Donetsk province, Sloviansk Mayor Vadim Lyakh said the power grid and railway lines were damaged by Russian shelling on Sunday, but reported no casualties.
Local officials in southern Kherson province confirmed that Russian forces fired 29 times at Ukrainian-controlled territory in the region on Saturday, with residential areas of the regional capital Kherson coming under fire three times. Three people died in the province and three others were injured.
A woman was injured in Russian shelling on Sunday in the village of Bilozerka, just outside Kherson.
Three districts were shelled in Kharkiv province, but no civilian casualties were reported.
Mykolaiv Region Governor Vitali Kim said the city of Ochakiv, at the mouth of the Dnieper River, came under artillery fire early Sunday. Cars were set on fire and private houses and high-rise buildings were damaged. No casualties were reported.
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