Mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Group outside a damaged building in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, April 10, 2023
Monday’s Coverage: Air Defenses Down 15 of 18 Russian Missiles
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1540 GMT:
Parades on May 9 for Victory Day, the anniversary of the Soviet triumph over Germany in World War II, have been cancelled in at least six Russian regions.
The governor of the Saratov region, 400 miles from the Ukraine border, said on Tuesday that the parade has been called off because of “safety concerns”.
Saratov joins Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Oryol, and the Pskov regions and Russian-occupied Crimea in cancellations.
UPDATE 0657 GMT:
A freight train has derailed and burned in an apparent attack in the Bryansk region of Russia, near the Ukraine border.
Video showed dozens of destroyed and smoldering carriages, as emergency crews extingushed several fires.
Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said an explosive detonated on the railway.
Russian military blogger Sergey Karnaukhov posted videos with the comment, “You must highlight the wretchedness of those who are doing the planning in the Ukrainian special forces. They came here and put down mines, blew up a commercial train. How vile!”
Neither the govenor nor military bloggers said what cargo the freight train was carrying.
Bogomaz also claimed that Ukrainian forces shelled the village of Kurkovichi on Tuesday morning.
UPDATE 0629 GMT:
Two Canadian nationals have been killed in the defense of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
The men were named as Kyle Porter, 27, of Calgary and Cole Zelenco, 21 of St. Catharine’s in Ontario. Both served with Ukraine’s International Legion.
Communicating in recent days with CBC News, Porter wrote, “Let me figure out how I am going to survive the next few days.”
Five Canadians have been killed in action during the Russian invasion.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia has suffered about 100,000 casualties since November in its assault to overrun the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, estimate US intelligence officials.
More than 20,000 Russian troops — many of them Wagner Group mercenaries — have been killed in the “human wave” attacks in and near Bakhmut, which had a pre-invasion population of about 70,000, in the Donetsk region.
The casualties are three times greater than the five-month fight for the island of Guadacanal in 1945, one of the bloodiest battles in World War II.
Despite the toll, Russia has not been able to vanquish the Ukrainian resistance in the city. Wagner mercenaries hold about 85% of the center. However, the Ukrainian military said on Monday that it had regained a few blocks in a situation that remained “difficult”.
See also EA on Ireland’s RTE: The Ukraine War from Bakhmut to Moscow
Analysts assess that Bakhmut has been of limited strategic value since a Ukrainian counter-offensive took all of the neighboring Kharkiv region last autumn. Even if the city fell, the Russians would struggle to make a further advance in Donetsk.
A Russian winter offensive elsewhere in the region failed elsewhere at high cost. More than 130 armored vehicles were lost and entire brigades decimated in January-February near Vuhledar, about 90 miles southwest of Bakhmut. Moscow’s forces made little advance on Slovyansk, about 25 miles to the north, and Kramatorsk.
US national security spokesman John Kirby summarized on Monday, “Russia’s attempt at an offensive in the Donbas [the Donetsk and Luhansk regions], largely through Bakhmut, has failed….Russia has been unable to seize any really strategically significant territory.”
Kirby said about half of the Russian losses in and near Bakhmut were Wagner mercenaries, sent into battle without proper training or leadership.
He did not give any estimate of Ukrainian losses in their defense.
In November, US officials estimated all Russian casualties since the invasion of February 22 at more than 100,000 dead and injured.
The Ukraine military says it has “eliminated” about 191,420 Russian troops, including 460 in the past 24 hours.
