As always, there are conflicting reports about how well things are going for Russia right now. Russian officials claim they are making progress in Bakhmut but this may have been said for Russian state TV:

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader of the part of Donetsk region under Moscow’s control, said most Ukrainian forces had pulled back from the AZOM metals factory on the western side of the Bakhmutka river in the city.

“The important thing here was to clear out the industrial zone at the plant itself. You can practically say that has now been done, with the guys just finishing off (Ukrainian) fighters there who are only left in solitary groups,” Pushilin told Russian state TV.

His claims ran counter to Ukrainian and Western assertions that the situation in Bakhmut is stabilising and that Russia’s winter offensive is faltering.

Recently released drone footage shows there’s really nothing left of the town.

But Ukraine continues to inflict a lot of casualties on the Russians who continue to send human waves at the front lines.

Ukraine’s forces are seeking to inflict maximum casualties on the Russians, who have spent almost nine months attacking Bakhmut and already suffered heavy losses, General Syrsky said.

“The Russian troops are trying to concentrate their primary efforts on the Bakhmut front. They are not giving up their attempts to surround and capture the city,” he said in a post on the Telegram messaging app…

Military experts say that both armies have sustained huge casualties around Bakhmut. The fighting there has involved devastating artillery barrages, trench warfare and, at times, Russian soldiers advancing on foot without the protection of armored vehicles.

“We physically barely manage to fight back those waves, waves of people they send,” a Ukrainian military expert, Oleg Zhdanov, said in an interview.

Russia has also been opening up attacks on the town of Avdiivka which is about 50 miles south of Bakhmut. There were reports that Wagner mercenaries were being redeployed from Bakhmut to Avdiivka but that has since been denied.

“No, this is not true,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram post published Tuesday. “There are no divisions of PMC (Private Military Company) ‘Wagner’ on Avdiivka and never have been. All tasks that are performed are performed exclusively by the military. And good luck to the guys in their task!”

The attacks on Avdiivka have succeeded in wiping out much of the town as you can see in this video.

Ukraine’s frontline city of Avdiivka ‘is being wiped off the face of the Earth’ says Vitaliy Barabash, the city’s military administration head.

I returned there earlier this month as Russian forces closed in to report on the sickening destruction https://t.co/aplg0PvRRc… pic.twitter.com/gyJUJKKx6T

— Ian Birrell (@ianbirrell) March 28, 2023

But leveling civilian buildings with artillery doesn’t mean the Russians are actually gaining much territory. According to the British Ministry of Defense, Russia has actually lost a lot of tanks and other armored vehicles for very little gain in this area.

(2/4) Russia’s 10th Tank Regiment has likely lost a large proportion of its tanks while attempting to surround Avdiivka from the south. The regiment is part of 3rd Army Corps, the first major new formation Russia stood up to support the invasion of Ukraine since August 2022.

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 28, 2023

(4/4) 10th Tank Regiment’s losses have likely largely been due to tactically flawed frontal assaults similar to those in other recent failed Russian armoured attacks, such as around the town of Vuhledar.

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 28, 2023

In case you’ve forgotten Vuhledar was another Russian tank offensive which ended very badly for Russia. But the stalemate in the east could be changing soon as the weather warms up and also thanks to new weapons which arrived in Ukraine this week, including UK Challenger 2 tanks.

#Ukraine: New Western equipment was transferred to the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces – including 🇬🇧 Challenger 2 tanks, 🇺🇸 Stryker armored personnel carriers, 🇩🇪 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 🇺🇸 Cougar MRAP vehicles and 🇨🇦 Roshel Senator armored cars. pic.twitter.com/qgu96nQAuV

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 27, 2023

Here’s the Ukrainian Defense Minister giving a thumbs up and a thank you to the UK.

It was a pleasure to take the first Ukrainian Challenger 2 MBT for a spin.
Such tanks, supplied by the United Kingdom, have recently arrived in our country.
These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions.
Thank you, @RishiSunak, @BWallaceMP, and the 🇬🇧 people. pic.twitter.com/zoCRmKdBnN

— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) March 28, 2023

But lots of other new weapons are arriving this week:

Ukraine has received 18 German Leopard 2 main battle tanks, as promised by Germany, Spiegel reported on Monday.

According to Spiegel, Ukraine also received approximately 40 Marder armored infantry fighting vehicles. The German government is not disclosing the exact delivery route of military equipment for security reasons.

Along with the Challenger 2 tanks, the Ukrainian soldiers who spent weeks in the UK training to use them have also returned home.

The training has been completed after UK military officials spent several weeks instructing the Ukrainian personnel in how to operate and fight with Challenger 2 tanks, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Monday.

The troops travelled to Britain shortly after Rishi Sunak announced in January that the UK would send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. The MoD could not confirm the exact location of the tanks.

The Ukrainian crews and the tanks are expected to be in position in time for a spring counteroffensive that is believed to be in the works.

So the pieces are now in place for that spring counteroffensive to begin. Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks are more than a match for most of the Russian tanks that have been used in Ukraine. In fact, there’s reason to think Russia is now down to sending in some old tanks build in the 1940s for WWII even as Ukraine is upgrading. So as bad as Russian losses have been, they’re about to get a lot worse.

Finally, here’s a longer video about the training Ukrainian forces received on the Challenger 2 tanks.