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The leader of the Wagner Group claims to have taken control of a strategic city in the Donbass

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The Russian group of Wagner mercenaries assured this Sunday, February 12, that they had taken control of the town of Krasna Hora, near the disputed city of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine. Russian troops continue to bombard cities across the country, while the UK Ministry of Defense, which monitors the war, reported that Moscow is experiencing its biggest frontline military loss since the start of the invasion.

Russia is claiming results in the brutal, months-long battle it aims to fully occupy the strategic Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.

The founder of the Russian group of Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, assured this Sunday, February 12, that his men took the village of Krasna Hora, in the extreme north of the city of Bakhmut.

It is a key town due to its location, in the Kremlin’s strategic line to consolidate its invasion in the east of the country since the Donbass conflict in 2014 and the ongoing war that it ordered on February 24, 2022.

“Today, the Krasna Hora settlement was taken over by the stormtroopers of the Wagner private military company,” Prigozhin said.

The leader of the paramilitary movement also published a short video in which he showed what would be Wagner’s fighters at the entrance to the villa. However, that information has not been independently verified.

Wagner admitted on Saturday, February 11, that capturing all the territories ordered by Vladimir Putin in eastern Ukraine will not be easy and could take at least two years.

For his part, Kiev’s top military commander, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, maintains that Ukraine maintains the front line in Donetsk, including Bakhmut, and tries to “stabilize” defense operations around it.

The ghost town where Ukrainian forces hold out is the center of one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict. Last December, President Volodimir Zelensky acknowledged that “there is not a single place in Bakhmut that is not covered in blood”, giving an account of the critical situation in a place where the dead on both sides number in the thousands.

London: Russian Army Faces Highest Loss of Life Since Start of War

According to a report by UK intelligence agencies that monitor the conflict, the Kremlin troops are experiencing the highest number of casualties since the first week of the invasion.

Britain’s Defense Ministry has reported that Moscow has likely suffered its highest death toll from fighting since the early days of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” nearly a year ago in the past two weeks.

“The average of the last seven days was 824 casualties per day, more than four times the rate reported between June and July 2022,” said the British Defense Ministry.

Russian soldiers patrol the area surrounding the Ukrainian military unit in Perevalnoye, on the outskirts of Simferopol, March 20, 2014. kyiv will never recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and will fight for the "release" of the strategic Black Sea peninsula, Ukraine's parliament said in a resolution passed on March 20.
Russian soldiers patrol the area surrounding the Ukrainian military unit in Perevalnoye, on the outskirts of Simferopol, March 20, 2014. Kiev will never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and will fight for the “liberation” of the strategic Crimean peninsula. Black Sea, Ukraine’s parliament said in a resolution passed on March 20. © AFP / Filippo MONTEFORTE

The increase in Russian casualties is likely due to a variety of factors, including a lack of trained personnel or a shortage of coordination and resources on the front lines of the fighting, situations seen in Vuhledar and Bakhmut, London says.

But on the other side of the confrontations the situation would also be critical. The same sources stress that Ukraine continues to suffer from a high desertion rate.

Germany starts training Ukrainian soldiers to drive Leopard 2 tanks

Amid the intensification of Moscow’s offensive, kyiv is preparing to strengthen its defenses, especially after managing to increase military aid from the West after months of reluctance.

Ukrainian Army soldiers will start training the powerful Leopard 2 tanks in Germany next week, according to the local weekly ‘Der Spiegel’.

Sources cited by the media indicate that the first troops from kyiv for this training have already traveled to German territory and part of them come from the front line of the fighting.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivers a speech in front of a Leopard 2 tank during a visit to a German Army Bundeswehr military base in Bergen, Germany, on October 17, 2022.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivers a speech in front of a Leopard 2 tank during a visit to a German Army Bundeswehr military base in Bergen, Germany, on October 17, 2022. © Archive / Fabian Bimmer / Reuters

However, he emphasizes that it would be an accelerated training in which the Kiev uniformed officers would learn the fundamentals of using these vehicles and the possibilities of combining their actions with the Marder armored tanks.

The acquisition of this type of tanks represents the elevation of the military bet. The Leopard 2 are considered the jewel of the German Army.

Used in more than a dozen countries, the Leopard 2, which strengthened Germany’s military capabilities in the late 1970s against the communist bloc, has a range of around 500 km and a top speed of 68 km/h. .

For months, Berlin resisted its delivery to kyiv for fear of the Kremlin’s response and the escalation of the war.

But finally the government of Olaf Scholz gave in to pressure from the block of allies of the European Union, promoted by Poland, against this objective. Shortly after, the United States also approved the shipment of its Abrams tanks, but some experts warn of logistical and management difficulties.

Even so, the Berlin-trained Ukrainian soldiers are scheduled to return to the battlefield with the Leopard 2s at the end of March.

With Reuters, AP and local media

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