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March 25, 2023 1:22 pm
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Russian Forces Press on Ukraine Front After Reports of Bakhmut Slowdown

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avatar by i24 News

Ukrainian service members fire a howitzer M119 at a front line, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine March 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak/File Photo

i24 News – Russian forces attacked northern and southern stretches of the war’s front in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on Friday, even as Kyiv officials reported Moscow’s assault was lagging near the city of Bakhmut.

Bakhmut – which had a pre-war population of some 70,000 people – has been virtually emptied of civilians over months of fierce fighting. Russian forces have been posting incremental gains around the city, whose symbolic importance surpassed any military significance as the battle dragged on.

According to the British Defense Ministry’s latest intelligence update on Saturday, Russia’s assault on Bakhmut “has largely stalled,” attributing it to “extreme attrition of the Russian forces.” Days earlier, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces said Russia’s assault on Bakhmut appeared to be losing steam and that Kyiv could go on the offensive “very soon.”

But on Friday, Ukrainian military reports described heavy fighting along a line running from Lyman to Kupiansk, as well as in the south on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Donetsk. Both areas have been major Russian targets in a winter campaign to fully capture Ukraine’s industrialized Donbas region.

The offensive has so far yielded scant gains despite the deaths of thousands of troops on both sides in the war’s bloodiest fighting. As spring approaches, the main question in Ukraine is how much longer Russia can sustain its offensive, and when or whether Ukraine can reverse the momentum with a counterassault.

Meanwhile, the United Nations issued a report on rights abuses in the war, confirming thousands of civilian deaths as well as disappearances, torture, and rape, mostly of Ukrainians in Russian-occupied areas.

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