Britain Says Russia Has Lost A Third Of Its Forces In Ukraine

Battle for Donbas intensifies; Ukraine stages counteroffensive near Russian-held Izium

RUSKA LOZOVA (Ukraine) • Russia has probably lost around a third of the ground forces it deployed to Ukraine and its offensive in the Donbas region “has lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule”, British military intelligence said yesterday.

“Despite small-scale initial advances, Russia has failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition,” the British defence ministry said on Twitter. "Russia has now likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force it committed in February.”

It said Russia was unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.

The front lines in Ukraine shifted yesterday as Russia made advances in the fiercely contested eastern Donbas region and Ukraine's military waged a counteroffensive near the strategic Russian-held city of Izium.

Near the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, where Ukrainian forces have been on the attack since early this month, commanders said they believed Russia had been withdrawing troops to reinforce positions around Izium to the south.