Ukraine war live updates: Ukrainian forces are coming under ‘insane pressure’ from Russia, Kyiv says, but counteroffensives are being prepared

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled Kyiv is preparing its soldiers for counteroffensives and praised soldiers for defending the country despite the “insane pressure” Russian forces have been putting on them.

“We are preparing for the return of our warriors to actions for the liberation of our land,” the president said in his nightly address Tuesday, alluding to an expected counteroffensive Ukraine is likely to launch in spring.

Ahead of that offensive, Zelenskyy said Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine that has been wrestled over by Russian and Ukrainian forces for over six months, remains the epicenter of fierce fighting and fatalities in the war.

“The most difficult situation is still Bakhmut and the battles that are important for the defense of the city,” he noted, adding that the Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Colonel general Oleksandr Syrskyi had told him that around 800 Russian troops had been killed in the Bakhmut area since last Thursday.

Zelenskyy said “Russia does not count people at all, sending them to constantly storm our positions. The intensity of fighting is only increasing.”

— Holly Ellyatt

In the year since it invaded Ukraine, Russia has suffered more troops killed than in all Russian wars following World War II combined, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

CSIS, a 62-year-old, U.S.-based think tank, concluded that about 5,000 to 5,800 Russian military personnel have been killed monthly since February of last year, bringing the total dead to 60,000 to 70,000 individuals.

“The average rate of Russian soldiers killed per month is at least 25 times the number killed per month in Chechnya and 35 times the number killed in Afghanistan,” CSIS said in a detailed report it released this week, highlighting “the stark realities of a war of attrition.”

Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Since Ukraine defeated Moscow’s initial drive to take Kyiv last year, Ukrainian and Russian forces have arrayed against one another along a meandering, 500-600 mile front.

Russia has lost huge numbers of tanks, leaving its military increasingly dependent on infantry attacks.

Ukraine’s army has fought primarily from defensive positions and has come up with “new ways of fighting that improve the efficiency” of its forces, CSIS said.

— Ted Kemp

Photos show a building damaged in Kramatorsk by a Russian rocket attack. Three people were killed and ten apartments were damaged in the strike.

As Russian forces ramp up their offensive in the Donbas, the number of casualties has increased.

— Ignacio Marin | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi renewed his concerns about heavy artillery fire near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Grossi said the site, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, temporarily lost power on “its only remaining backup power line.”

He said that IAEA inspectors at the site documented at least 20 detonations on Monday.

He also expressed concerns about the IAEA inspectors at the facility who have not been able to rotate out of working there. He added that the team should have been replaced nearly a month ago.

— Amanda Macias

Ukraine’s top intelligence agency said that it had not seen evidence that China agreed to supply Russia with weapons.

“There are no signs that China will agree to send any weapons to the Russian Federation,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, said in an interview with Voice of America.

“As of now, I don’t think that China will agree to the transfer of weapons to Russia. I don’t see any signs that such things are even being discussed,” Budanov said.

He added that the majority of the weapons being sent to aid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine are from Iran.

— Amanda Macias

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the FSB security service on Tuesday to step up its activity to counter what he described as growing espionage and sabotage operations against Russia by Ukraine and the West.

In a speech to FSB officials, Putin said the agency had to stop “sabotage groups” entering Russia from Ukraine, step up protection of key infrastructure, and prevent any attempts by Western security services to revive what he called terrorist or extremist cells on Russian territory.

“Western intelligence services have traditionally always been actively working in Russia, and now they have thrown additional personnel, technical and other resources against us. We need to respond accordingly,” Putin said.

He instructed the FSB to prevent illegal weapons flows into Russia, and to strengthen security in four regions of Ukraine that Moscow has partially seized and claimed as part of its own territory, a move most countries do not recognise.

— Reuters

Officials in Kyiv conceded that the situation is rapidly deteriorating around Bakhmut, a besieged mining city in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces have been hell-bent on capturing for months.

Russia’s slow but steady march on Bakhmut has raised questions over whether Ukraine will have to decide to withdraw its troops from the city in order to save its personnel. But there are no signs Kyiv is ready to give up just yet.

Read more on the situation in Bakhmut here: As Russian forces bear down on Bakhmut, Ukraine admits situation there is ‘more and more difficult’