Russian forces have made progress in their campaign to capture the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the focus of the war’s longest ground battle, but their assault will be difficult to sustain without more significant personnel losses, British military officials said Saturday.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest assessment that paramilitary units from the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group have seized most of eastern Bakhmut, with a river flowing through the city now marking the front line of the fighting.

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The Ukrainian military might pull troops back from the key stronghold of Bakhmut, an adviser to Ukraine’s president said Wednesday in remarks that suggested Russia could capture the city that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.

Kremlin forces have waged a bloody, monthslong offensive to take Bakhmut, a city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine that has become a ghost town.

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On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved what he would call a ’special military operation’ in Ukraine.

In fact, it was a straightforward invasion, one that has so far cost the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers in Ukraine and tens of thousands of Putin’s own soldiers, many of them conscripts.

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Russia has recorded nearly 143,000 casualties since the start of the war in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian army.

The latest update from the Kiev Defense Ministry reported on Twitter says that the number of victims of the Russian side has reached 142,860, up by 590 compared to yesterday.

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Ukrainian forces are bracing for an imminent large-scale attack by Russian troops as the Kremlin seeks to regain the initiative in the war and seize the rest of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have multiplied warnings in recent days about a coming Russian offensive, albeit with differing timelines. Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, said on Sunday that his country expected Russia’s invading forces to launch a new offensive in the Donbas and southern areas where it currently occupies close to 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory later this month.

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