Britain says Russia has lost a third of its forces in Ukraine

RUSKA LOZOVA (Ukraine) • Russia has probably lost around a third of the ground forces it deployed to Ukraine and its offensive in the Donbas region "has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule", British military intelligence said yesterday.

"Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition," the British defence ministry said on Twitter. "Russia has now likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force it committed in February."

It said Russia was unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.

The front lines in Ukraine shifted yesterday as Russia made advances in the fiercely contested eastern Donbas region and Ukraine's military waged a counteroffensive near the strategic Russian-held city of Izium.

Near the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, where Ukrainian forces have been on the attack since early this month, commanders said they believed Russia had been withdrawing troops to reinforce positions around Izium to the south.

Ukraine has scored a series of successes since Russia invaded on Feb 24, forcing Russia's commanders to abandon an advance on the capital Kyiv and then making rapid gains to drive them from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city.

Moscow's invasion, which it calls a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists, has jolted European security. Kyiv and its Western allies say the fascism assertion is a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression.

Keeping up pressure on Izium and Russian supply lines will make it harder for Moscow to encircle battle-hardened Ukrainian troops on the eastern front in the Donbas.

Izium straddles the Donets River, about 120km from Kharkiv.

"The hottest spot remains the Izium direction," regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in comments aired on social media. "Our armed forces have switched to a counteroffensive there. The enemy is retreating on some fronts."

In Ruska Lozova, a village set in sweeping fields between Kharkiv and Ukraine's border with Russia, Ukrainian commanders said they believed Moscow was redeploying troops to defend Izium while keeping their opponents pinned down with artillery fire.

"The Russian attack on Kharkiv has been destroyed and they understand this," said Mr Ihor Obolensky, head of the National Guard and volunteer force that captured Ruska Lozova eight days ago. "They need to try for a new victory and want to hold Izium."

Both sides claimed success in military strikes in Donbas.

Meanwhile, Russia yesterday said that it had pummelled Ukrainian positions in the east with missiles, targeting command centres and arsenals as its forces seek to encircle Ukrainian units in the battle for Donbas.

Ukraine's military also acknowledged setbacks, saying in an update: "Despite losses, Russian forces continue to advance in the Lyman, Sievierodonetsk, Avdiivka and Kurakhiv areas in the broader Donbas region."

In western Ukraine near Poland, missiles destroyed military infrastructure overnight and were fired at the Lviv region from the Black Sea, Ukrainian officials said.

There was also no let-up yesterday in Russia's bombardment of the steel works in the southern port of Mariupol, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are holding out weeks after the city fell into Russian hands, Ukraine's military said.

Talks were under way to evacuate wounded soldiers from Mariupol in return for releasing Russian prisoners of war, said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Berlin yesterday and that "more weapons and other aid is on the way to Ukraine", posting a photograph of his meeting with the US official on Twitter.

Ukraine's top diplomat also said Germany had made a "political decision" to end its energy reliance on Moscow.

"My impression is that the fundamental political decision that Germany's dependence on Russian gas is a huge problem and that this dependence must end, such a decision has been made," he said.

Germany is "one of the leading countries really pushing for an oil embargo" on Russia, despite recently believing this was "impossible", Mr Kuleba added.

REUTERS