Ukraine, Russia Locked in Brutal Battle in Bakhmut, Casualties Mount

Rescue workers connect fire hoses to start extinguishing the fire after shelling by Russian forces of residential neighborhood in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, Friday, March 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Rescue workers connect fire hoses to start extinguishing the fire after shelling by Russian forces of residential neighborhood in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, Friday, March 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
TT
20

Ukraine, Russia Locked in Brutal Battle in Bakhmut, Casualties Mount

Rescue workers connect fire hoses to start extinguishing the fire after shelling by Russian forces of residential neighborhood in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, Friday, March 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Rescue workers connect fire hoses to start extinguishing the fire after shelling by Russian forces of residential neighborhood in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, Friday, March 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ukrainian forces faced relentless Russian attacks on Bakhmut in its eastern Donetsk region on Monday, with both sides reporting mounting enemy casualties as they battled across a small river that bisects the ruined town and now marks the front line.

The situation in the nearly deserted town was difficult, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces said, though adding that his forces were repelling all Russian attempts to capture it, Reuters reported.

"All enemy attempts to capture the town are repelled by artillery, tanks, and other firepower," Colonel general Oleksandr Syrskyi was quoted as saying on the Ukraine's Media Military Centre Telegram messaging platform.

Ukrainian forces control the west of Bakhmut, while Russia's Wagner mercenary group controls most of the eastern part, with the Bakhmutka River that flows through the town marking the front line, British intelligence said in a weekend update.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Sunday the situation was "tough, very tough". "The closer we are to the center of the city, the harder the fighting ... The Ukrainians throw in endless reserves. But we are advancing and we will be advancing," Prigozhin said in comments released by his press service.

He also said Russian army members helped his troops with ammunition.

"Yesterday, we got 15 truckloads, today we got 12. And I think we will continue to receive them," he said, adding there was no conflict between his fighters and Russian troops.

Prigozhin had previously complained that Russia's top brass was deliberately starving his men of ammunition, an allegation the defense ministry rejected.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Sunday his forces had killed more than 1,100 Russian soldiers in the past few days as they fought for control of Bakhmut.

"In less than a week, starting from the 6th March, we managed to kill more than 1,100 enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, Russia's irreversible loss," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Russian forces sustained 1,500 "sanitary losses", soldiers wounded badly enough to keep them out of action, he added.

Russia's defence ministry said earlier in the day that its forces had killed more than 220 Ukrainian service members over the past 24 hours in the Donetsk region.

Prigozhin said Wagner "will begin to reboot" and start hiring once Bakhmut is captured. Wagner has opened recruitment centers across 42 cities to replenish its ranks.

Neither side gave details of their own casualties.

WAITING FOR TANKS
While Bakhmut's strategic value is debatable, Russia sees capturing it as a step towards a major aim of the war - now in its second year - of seizing all of Ukraine's Donbas industrial region. Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up the Donbas.

Ukraine has decided to stay and fight on in the mining town, after initial signs it was planning to withdraw, to grind down Russia's best units ahead of an expected spring offensive by Ukrainian forces.

Analysts expect a Ukrainian counter-offensive to begin in earnest over April-May as the weather improves and more military aid arrives, including heavy Leopard and Challenger tanks.

Western tanks will significantly change war tactics, Leonid Khoda, a decorated Ukrainian tank brigade commander, told Reuters.

"Everyone is waiting, 1st Tank Brigade is waiting too. Not long ago we sent personnel to learn to operate (Leopard) 2A6," said Khoda, who commands the 1st Siversk Tank Brigade which is fighting in the south of Donetsk.

Elsewhere, Russia's air defense shot down four missiles over its Belgorod region bordering Ukraine on Monday, its governor said, adding that one person was injured.

Vyacheslav Gladkov did not say who was behind the attacks but in the past he has accused Ukrainian forces on the other side of the border of similar attacks.

The Russia-controlled Ukrainian city of Donetsk was shelled four times on Sunday, with residential areas and power lines hit and Russian-installed officials blaming Ukraine.

Ukraine almost never claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russia-controlled territory in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has urged Germany to speed up supplies of ammunition and to start training Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets.

Kuleba made clear he did not expect Western allies to give Ukraine the aircraft it has been asking for any time soon, but said pilots should be ready for when the decision was taken.

A senior EU official said the European Union could soon top up a fund for purchasing weapons for Ukraine by 3.5 billion euros ($3.7 billion).



Italy Sends Rejected Migrants to Detention Centers in Albania

Police officers stand guard as buses carrying migrants arrive at a facility in Gjader, Albania, 11 April 2025. EPA/DOMENICO PALESSE
Police officers stand guard as buses carrying migrants arrive at a facility in Gjader, Albania, 11 April 2025. EPA/DOMENICO PALESSE
TT
20

Italy Sends Rejected Migrants to Detention Centers in Albania

Police officers stand guard as buses carrying migrants arrive at a facility in Gjader, Albania, 11 April 2025. EPA/DOMENICO PALESSE
Police officers stand guard as buses carrying migrants arrive at a facility in Gjader, Albania, 11 April 2025. EPA/DOMENICO PALESSE

Italian authorities on Friday transferred 40 migrants with no permission to remain in the country to Italian-run migration detention centers in Albania.
It was the first time a European Union country sent rejected migrants to a nation outside the EU that is neither their own nor a country they had transited on their journey, migration experts said.
A military ship with the migrants departed the Italian port of Brindisi and arrived hours later in the Albanian port of Shengjin, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of the capital, Tirana. The migrants were seen being transferred in buses and minivans under heavy security to an Italian-run center in Shengjin, where they will be processed before being transferred to a second center in Gjader, also run by Italian authorities.
The Italian government has not released their nationalities or further details, The Associated Press said.
Both facilities in Shengjin and in Gjader were originally built to process asylum requests of people intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea by Italy. But since their inauguration in October, Italian courts have stopped authorities from using them and small groups of migrants sent there have returned to Italy.
Italy’s far-right-led government of Premier Giorgia Meloni approved a decree last month that expanded the use of the Albanian fast-track asylum processing centers to include the detention of rejected asylum-seekers with deportation orders.
It is not clear how long the migrants may be held in Albania. In Italy they can be detained for up to 18 months pending deportation.
Meloni's novel approach to expel the migrants echoes US President Donald Trump’s recent deportations of migrants of various nationalities to Panama. It's also in line with a recent EU Commission proposal that, if passed, would allow EU members to set up so-called “return hubs” abroad.
Some experts and rights groups question the transfers Migration experts consulted by The Associated Press say it's unclear how legal Italy's actions were. Meghan Benton of the Migration Policy Institute said the move likely will be challenged in court. Speaking from Toulouse, France, Benton said other EU countries are interested in doing the same, including the Netherlands with Uganda.
Francesco Ferri, a migration expert with ActionAid, who was among a group of nongovernmental organizations and Italian lawmakers visiting Albania to follow the migrant transfer, said Italian authorities have failed to clarify what happens to the migrants once they're in Albania. He said there is no legislation in Italian law, nor in EU law, nor in the Albania-Italy agreement that would allow rejected asylum-seekers to be deported directly from Albania, making the purpose of the transfer unclear.
“For us it is unacceptable,” Ferri said.
The Albanian centers opened in October but they remained substantially inactive due to legal hurdles and wide opposition from human rights associations, which believe they violate international laws and put migrants’ rights at risk.
The November 2023 agreement between Italy and Albania— worth nearly 800 million euros over five years — allows up to 3,000 migrants intercepted by the Italian coast guard in international waters each month to be sheltered in Albania and vetted for possible asylum in Italy or repatriation.
Italy has agreed to welcome those migrants who are granted asylum, while those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.
The first three groups of 73 migrants transferred there in October, November and January spent only a few hours in Albania and were returned to Italy after Italian magistrates refused to validate their detention in the non-EU country.
So far this year, 11,438 migrants landed on Italian shores, less than the 16,090 who arrived in the same period last year. Most arrived from Bangladesh, followed by Syria, Tunisia and Egypt, according to the Italian Interior Ministry. Irregular border crossings were 31% lower across the European Union according to figures released Friday by the EU's Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex. ____
Semini reported from Tirana, Albania and Brito from Barcelona, Spain. Associated Press journalists Colleen Barry, Giada Zampano and Paolo Santalucia in Rome contributed to this report.