Donbas

Ukrainian forces have released what they claim is video footage of a “street fight” between the State Border Guard Service and Wagner Group mercenaries in the key battleground city of Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast. 

The owner of Russia’s Wagner Group military company claimed that his troops have extended their gains in the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut.

(AFP) – Ukraine pledged on Monday to bolster its defences in frontline Bakhmut, after reports that Kyiv was withdrawing from the city that’s become a symbolic prize in the war.

KHROMOVE, Ukraine (AP) — Pressure from Russian forces mounted Saturday on Ukrainians hunkered down in Bakhmut, as residents attempted to flee with help from troops who Western analysts say may be preparing to withdraw from the key eastern stronghold.

The conflict has inflicted horrendous destruction and loss of life, and staggering amounts of money have been poured into Ukraine’s defense by the Western world, but neither side is making much progress toward victory or a negotiated peace settlement.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – A week before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin’s U.N. ambassador claimed that the West is driven by its determination to destroy Russia and declared: “We had no choice other than to defend our country – defend it from you, to defend our identity and our future.”

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces over the weekend continued to shell Ukrainian cities amid a grinding push to seize more land in the east of the country, with Ukrainian officials saying that Moscow is having trouble launching its much-anticipated large-scale offensive there.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — In a small coal-mining town on Ukraine’s eastern front line, a fight for strategic superiority is being waged in a battlefield steeped with symbolism as the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears.

Providing new tanks to Ukraine won’t change the reality on the ground of the current conflict with Russia, according to retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, who claimed the United States has “no plan” or strategy and warned of the real-world danger of invoking NATO’s “mutual defense” clause, which would trigger a nuclear war.

(AFP) – Ukraine said Friday it was resisting a “high intensity” Russian offensive in Soledar, a nearly completely destroyed town in the eastern Donetsk region that is now the epicentre of the war.

(AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said fighting is still raging in a key eastern frontline city that a Russian mercenary group earlier said it controlled, as Moscow announced a new military commander in Ukraine.

Russian claims of a deadly “retaliation” strike on Ukrainian troop accommodation appear to have been debunked by eyewitnesses and the evidence on the ground, as the leader of the Wagner mercenary force talks of capturing “underground cities” in a Donbas mining complex.

Russian and Ukrainian forces battled at close range in forest near the Donbas town of Kremina over Orthodox Christmas, according to British intelligence.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is gambling its reputation somewhat by predicting Russia is “unlikely” to make significant gains in the coming months.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces have “destroyed” the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, while Ukraine’s military on Saturday reported missile, rocket and air strikes in multiple parts of the country that Moscow is trying to conquer after months of resistance.

Russia claims its forces are advancing in the Donetsk region of the Donbas, and that it has “liberated” a number of settlements.

Russian forces carried out almost 400 artillery strikes against Ukrainian positions in the eastern Donbas region on Sunday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

One British volunteer in Ukraine is reported dead and another as requiring brain surgery following a bloody clash with Russian tanks in Donbas. 

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces are stepping up their strikes in a fiercely contested region of eastern Ukraine, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending army following Moscow’s illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province, Ukrainian authorities said.

Russian forces are making “tactical advances” in the Donbas following a long run of bad news for their “special military operation”, according to British intelligence.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown with suicide drones on Sunday, and Ukraine pushed ahead with its counteroffensive after taking back control of a strategic eastern city.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia defended the referendums, claiming that more than 100 international observers from Italy, Germany, Venezuela, and Latvia who observed the voting recognized the outcomes as legitimate.

Ukraine claims it has Russian forces in the key eastern city of Lyman completely surrounded, and that they have eliminated close to 60,000 Russian personnel since February.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin marked the illegal annexation of a territory representing 15 percent of Ukraine on Friday with a rambling speech lamenting the fall of the Soviet Union, condemning gender transitions for children, and proclaiming, “the destruction of this Western hegemony is irreversible.”

Russian forces launched new strikes on Ukrainian cities Saturday as Kremlin-orchestrated votes continued in occupied regions of Ukraine to pave the way for their annexation by Moscow.

Ukraine is reportedly on the precipice of a major victory, with its counter-offensive around the eastern city of Kharkiv (Kharkov) unexpectedly putting the Russian army on the back foot.

Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian warplanes have struck Ukrainian army positions in the southern Kherson region and in the Donetsk region. He added that the Russian air force also hit a facility in the Kharkiv region, killing at least 100 and wounding 50 “mercenaries” from the West.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia’s military pounded residential areas across Ukraine overnight, claiming gains, as Ukrainian forces pressed a counteroffensive to try to take back an occupied southern region, striking the last working bridge over a river in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces began an assault Saturday on two key cities in the eastern Donetsk region and kept up rocket and shelling attacks on other Ukrainian cities, including one close to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s military and local officials said.

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian military personnel are fortifying their positions around the eastern city of Sloviansk in expectation of a fresh Russian attempt to seize the strategic point in the fiercely fought-over Donetsk region.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia and Ukraine accused each other Friday of shelling a prison in a separatist region of eastern Ukraine, an attack that reportedly killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war captured after the fall of Mariupol, the

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia’s military fired a missile barrage at an airfield in central Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least three people, while Ukrainian forces launched rocket strikes on river crossings in a Russian-occupied southern region.

(AFP) – Russia is using Europe’s largest nuclear power plant as a base to store weapons including “missile systems” and shell the surrounding areas in Ukraine, an official with Kyiv’s nuclear agency said Friday, while nearly the entire country was placed on air raid alert.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces are managing to “raise true hell” in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland despite reports of them taking an operational pause, a regional governor said Saturday, while the government in Kyiv urged people in Russian-occupied southern areas to evacuate “by all possible means” ahead of a Ukrainian offensive.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia’s defence minister said Russian forces took control Sunday of the last major Ukrainian-held city in Ukraine’s Luhansk province, bringing Moscow closer to its stated goal of seizing all of Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Slovyansk is a city of splintered loyalties. With a large retired population, it is not uncommon to hear older residents express sympathy towards Russia or nostalgia for their Soviet past. There is also distrust of the Ukrainian army and government.