Severe casualties are reported as battle for Bakhmut rages

• Russia and Ukraine have suffered significant losses in the conflict for Bakhmut.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claiming 1,100 deaths and 1,500 injuries.
• The Russian mercenary Wagner Group is the driving force behind the attack.

As the conflict for Bakhmut continues, reports indicate that Russia and Ukraine have suffered significant losses.

Moscow has been waging a grueling war of attrition on eastern Ukraine for months.

Russian forces have lost more than 1,100 lives in the last several days, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and many more have been gravely injured.

Over the previous 24 hours, more than 220 Ukrainian service members, according to Russia, have died.

Despite having minimal strategic worth, according to analysts, Bakhmut has become a focus for Russian commanders who have found it difficult to bring any good news to the Kremlin.

By taking the city, Russia would be a little bit closer to its objective of dominating the entire Donetsk region, one of the four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed last September after holding fraudulent referendums that were roundly denounced outside of Russia.

Ukrainian commanders, who have committed significant resources to defending the city, say their strategy aims to tie Russia’s forces down and prevent Moscow from launching any further offensives in the coming months.

“In less than a week, starting from 6 March, we managed to kill more than 1,100 enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, Russia’s irreversible loss, right there, near Bakhmut,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

He claimed that 1,500 Russian servicemen suffered injuries severe enough to prevent them from participating in further combat.

The Russian defense ministry reported that “more than 220 Ukrainian servicemen” had been killed by Russian forces.

The Russian mercenary Wagner Group, according to Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of the ground forces of Ukraine, was hitting his soldiers from a number of angles in an effort to get past defenses and go into the town’s key neighborhoods.

The paramilitary group is the driving force behind the Russian attack on Bakhmut.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, its commander, has placed both his reputation and the reputation of his private army on capturing Bakhmut.

The city’s position is “tough, really difficult, the enemy is battling for every metre,” he stated on Sunday.

“And the closer to the city center, the fiercer the fighting,” he said in a voice recording published on Telegram.

After his envisioned capture of Bakhmut, “we will begin to reboot” and “will start recruiting new people from the regions”, he said.

And on Saturday, the Institute for the Study of War – a US think tank – reported that Moscow’s offence was stalling.

“Wagner Group fighters are likely becoming increasingly pinned in urban areas… and are therefore finding it difficult to make significant advances,” it said.

Only a few thousand of the 70,000 who were residing in Bakhmut prior to the invasion still do.

The city used to be well known for its sizable winery, salt, and gypsum mines.

According to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, those who stay in the city run the risk of leading dangerous lives.

On Monday, four individuals were hurt in Bakhmut.

Bakhmut has acquired political significance in Ukraine as well, with President Zelenskyy elevating the city to the status of a symbol of resistance.

In December, he paid a visit to Washington, referring to it as “the fortress of our morale,” and presented a Bakhmut flag to the US Congress.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 Russian troops have reportedly been killed or injured in and around Bakhmut, according to Western officials.

Seven people were hurt overall on Monday in the Donetsk region as a whole, according to Mr. Kyrylenko.

The regional governor of Luhansk, farther east, Serhiy Haidai, claimed that the enemy had “seriously intensified shelling” on the front line and increased the frequency of attacks. Mr. Haidai continued by saying that Russian forces were also bringing increasingly more supplies and personnel to the region.

According to the local administration, there were 47 attacks against Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia in other parts of eastern Ukraine.

Also, there were numerous reports of bombardment in the majority of the Donbas region.

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