Ukraine updates: Wagner captures most of Bakhmut's east

Russian forces have made progress in the front-line town of Bakhmut, a key target of Moscow's monthslong campaign in eastern Ukraine that has resulted in staggering casualties, the British Defense Ministry said in an assessment on Saturday.

In its regular intelligence update, the ministry said units from the Kremlin-backed paramilitary Wagner Group have captured most of eastern Bakhmut, with a river flowing through the city center now marking the front line.

However, the report added, it will be "highly challenging" for Wagner forces to push ahead, as Ukraine has destroyed key bridges over the river. Ukrainian sniper fire from fortified buildings further west has made the thin strip of open ground in the center "a killing zone," it said.

At the same time, Ukrainian troops and supply lines in the mining city remain vulnerable to "continued Russian attempts to outflank the defenders from the north and south," the ministry said.

Meanwhile, Wagner's chief has said in a clip posted Saturday that his forces are close to the center of the front line in Bakhmut.

In a video posted on messaging app Telegram, Yevgeny Prigozhin is seen standing on the rooftop of a high-rise building in what is said to be Bakhmut.

"This is the building of the town administration, this is the center of the town," Prigozhin said in the video, pointing toward a building in the distance. "It is one kilometer and two hundred meters away."

He also announced that he was seeking to run in next year's presidential election — though not in Russia, as had been temporarily speculated, but "in Ukraine."

Wagner has been spearheading offensives against cities in eastern Ukraine, in what has become the longest and bloodiest fight of Russia's yearlong assault. Both sides have suffered heavy losses around Bakhmut.

Here are some of the other notable developments concerning the war on Saturday, March 11:

Kuleba urges Germany to send more ammunition and train up pilots

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged Germany to speed up supplies of ammunition and to start training Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets.

Kuleba told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that ammunition shortages were the "number one" problem in Ukraine's attempt to repel Russia's invasion.

He said German weapons manufacturers had told him at the Munich Security Conference last month they were ready to deliver but were waiting for the government to sign contracts. "So the problem lies with the government," Kuleba was quoted as saying.

Kuleba also made clear he did not expect Western allies to give Ukraine the fighter jets it has been asking for any time soon.

But he said Ukrainian pilots should be trained anyway, so they would be ready once that decision was taken. If Germany were to train Ukrainian pilots, that would be a "clear message of its political engagement," the minister said.

Zelenskyy says Russia is 'synonymous with terror'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has deplored new "brutal terrorist attacks" by Russia on cities and towns across his country. 

Day and night there are these attacks, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. "Rockets and artillery,
drones and mortars: The vicious state uses a variety of weapons with the one goal of destroying life and leaving nothing human behind," Zelenskyy said.

"Ruins, rubble, craters where missiles hit are the self-portrait of Russia that it paints where life exists without Russia," the Ukrainian president said. The country stands for evil, he said.

"It has become synonymous with terror and will be an example of defeat and just punishment for its terror. The Kremlin cannot stop the punishment," Zelenskyy added.

Russian Orthodox head appeals against eviction of church from Kyiv

Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, asked Pope Francis and other religious leaders to persuade Ukraine to stop a crackdown against a historically Russian-aligned wing of the church.

The Ukrainian government on Friday ordered the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to leave a monastery complex in Kyiv, the latest move against a denomination the government says is pro-Russian and collaborating with Moscow.

Ukraine's Culture Ministry says the UOC has until March 29 to leave the 980-year-old Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, where it has its headquarters.

Kirill strongly backed Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The UOC says it has severed its ties with Russia and the Moscow Patriarchate and is the victim of a political witch hunt.

Since October, the Security Service of Ukraine has regularly carried out searches at UOC churches, imposed sanctions on its bishops and financial backers, and opened criminal cases against dozens of its clergymen.

Most Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to a separate branch of the faith, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formed four years ago by uniting branches independent of Moscow's authority.

Russian shelling kills 3 Ukrainian civilians in Kherson

Three civilians were killed in Russian shelling of Kherson in southern Ukraine, and one more died in the eastern Donetsk region, regional officials said.

Kherson's regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said three people, including an elderly woman, were also wounded during the artillery shelling of the city.

"Today the Russian occupiers have hit Kherson again. On a Mykolayivsky road near a shop, debris from a shell killed three people," Prokudin told Ukrainian TV, adding that a car, several buses and a commercial property were damaged.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, Donetsk's regional governor, said one person was killed and at least three civilians were injured in the city of Kostyantynivka following several rounds of Russian shelling during the day.

Iran to buy Su-35 fighter jets from Russia

Iran has reached a deal to buy advanced Su-35 fighter planes from Russia, Iranian state media said, expanding a relationship that has seen Iranian-built drones used in Russia's war on Ukraine.

"The Sukhoi-35 fighter planes are technically acceptable to Iran and Iran has finalized a contract for their purchase," broadcaster IRIB quoted Iran's mission to the United Nations as saying in New York.

The report did not carry any Russian confirmation of the deal, and its details were not disclosed. The mission said Iran had also inquired about buying military aircraft from several other unnamed countries, IRIB reported.

Pope Francis says he wants to visit Kyiv and Moscow

Pope Francis is ready to travel to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, but only on the condition that he can then also travel to Moscow.

"I will go to both places or neither," the head of the Catholic Church told the newspaper La Nacion from his native Argentina.

The Pope had already considered a trip to both countries last summer. At that time, too, he said he wanted to visit both Kyiv and Moscow.

German extremists take part in the war in Ukraine — report

According to Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, 61 extremists and politically motivated criminals have left Germany for the war zone in Ukraine, though they did not necessarily take part in combat operations. Around half of them are said to be in Ukraine now.

The authorities did not say which war party the extremists had joined, with reference to secrecy, as the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung reports. 

According to the Federal Police, 31 people came from the right-wing spectrum, 24 are assigned to the area of "foreign ideology/extremism". In addition, there were some representatives of religious and other ideologies, as well as the left spectrum. 

UK urges Olympic sponsors to back ban on Russian athletes

Britain has called on Olympic sponsors, including Coca-Cola and Samsung, to support a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes competing at next year's summer games in Paris.

London hopes that pressure from sponsors will sway the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with more than a year to go until the Paris 2024 games.

"We know sport and politics in Russia and Belarus are heavily intertwined, and we are determined that the regimes in Russia and Belarus must not be allowed to use sport for their propaganda purposes," the government said in a letter to the heads of the IOC's 13 official global partners.

The IOC in January outlined a roadmap to reinstate Russians and Belarussians, excluded from world sport since the invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, under a neutral flag provided they did not actively support the conflict.

Governments of more than 30 countries have asked the IOC for "clarification" on how Russian and Belarusian athletes would be able to compete.

dh/fb (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)