By Susie Blann -
The Associated Press
Russian forces continued to attack Ukrainian towns this weekend, amid an offensive to capture more ground in the east of the country, as Ukrainian officials say Moscow is having trouble launching its long-awaited full-scale push into the region and is suffering huge casualties.
On average, around 824 Russian soldiers have been killed each day during the month of February, according to Ukrainian government data, which the UK has described as "most likely accurate," according to BBC News.
If correct, the daily average Russian casualty figure would mark the fastest pace of deaths since the invasion of Ukraine began in late February 2022.
In Nikopol, a city in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, at least one person was killed and another wounded on Sunday morning due to artillery attacks on the city, according to regional governor Serhii Lysak.
The shells damaged four residential buildings, a vocational school and a water treatment plant.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, one person was injured after three Russian S-300 missiles hit infrastructure facilities overnight, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
The Russian military said the missiles fell on the armored car assembly shops of the Malyshev company plant in the city.
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A Ukrainian tank advances to its position on the front lines in Bahkmut, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, February 12, 2023. Libkos / AP
Ukrainian forces also shot down five Iranian-made drones — four Shahed attack aircraft and one Orlan-19 reconnaissance model — over the partially occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk on Saturday night, according to the Ukrainian military.
In total, Russian forces carried out 12 missile strikes and 32 shelling strikes in Ukraine in the past 24 hours, as well as more than 90 rounds of shelling with multiple rocket launchers, the Ukrainian General Staff reported in its daily report.
Russian forces are trying to take more ground in the eastern industrial region of the Donbas, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
Ukrainian and Western forces have warned that Russia could launch a major new offensive there to try to turn the tide of the conflict as the war approaches its one-year anniversary.
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However, Ukrainian officials said Moscow was having trouble mounting the offensive.
“They are having big problems with the big offensive,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said Saturday night.
“They have started their offensive, they just don't say they have, and our troops are repelling them very strongly.
The offensive they planned is already gradually underway.
But it's not (it's) the offense they were counting on," Danilov said.
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The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, noted that even pro-Kremlin military bloggers question the ability to launch a major offensive in Ukraine.
"They continue to appear demoralized by the possibility of the Kremlin launching a major offensive," the institute said in its latest report.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group — Russian military contractors actively involved in the fighting in Ukraine — said this week the war could drag on for years.
In a video interview released late Friday, Prigozhin said it could take anywhere from 18 months to two years to secure control of the Donbas.
He added that the war could drag on for up to three years if Moscow decides to capture more territory east of the Dnieper river.
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The statements by Prigozhin, a billionaire close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and nicknamed "Putin's chef" for his profitable restaurant deals with the Kremlin, acknowledge the difficulties they have faced in the campaign, which they initially hoped to resolve in a matter of weeks when Russian troops invaded the Ukraine on February 24.
Russia suffered a series of humiliating setbacks in the fall as the Ukrainian military launched successful counteroffensives to retake ground in the east and south.
Prigozhin said on Sunday that Wagner's fighters have seized the settlement of Krasna Hora, north of Bahkmut, a strategic town in the east around which fighting has focused in recent months.
