Russia Suffers Heavy Losses As Bakhmut Battle Grinds On

Hundreds of Russian troops have been killed in Bakhmut as Vladimir Putin's troops seek to wrest control of the frontline Donetsk city - with Kyiv's snipers said to have set up a "killing zone".

- Andy Gregory

Some 520 Russian troops were killed and wounded in Bakhmut alone in one day's fighting, Ukraine's military said, claiming Russia had suffered 2,000 fatalities since Friday - marking some of the deadliest days of the war since the invasion began.

Seeking to replenish its heavy losses, Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his Wagner private army had opened recruitment centres in 42 cities - as the UK asserted that the impact of casualties “varies dramatically" across Russian regions.

Losses are more than 30 times higher in many eastern regions than in Moscow, with the capital and St Petersburg "relatively unscathed" while in other places ethnic minorities bear the brunt of the Kremlin's war, according to Britain's Ministry of Defence.