Fiercest and heaviest fighting continues in Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials say

Ukrainian soldiers ride atop an APC on the frontline in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on April 8. (Libkos/AP)

The fiercest and heaviest fighting continues in the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Thursday.

At a news conference in Kyiv, Maliar said, “Despite the fact that the enemy has concentrated its most professional units in Bakhmut, including Wagner fighters, airborne assault units, and special forces, the Russians cannot achieve their goals there, i.e. take full control of Bakhmut.

Recent social media videos geolocated by CNN show how buildings have been flattened to ruins in the beleaguered city, while drone footage posted Wednesday by Russian state media RIA Novosti reveals the scale of the decimation wreaked by the months-long battle. 

Oleksii Hromov, deputy chief of the General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, said the Bakhmut area remains the most difficult and “the enemy continues offensive actions in the central part of Bakhmut, as well as in the directions of Bohdanivka and Ivanivske to surround the city from the north and south."

“In order to strengthen the offensive potential, some of the enemy's forces and means were moved to the Bakhmut area from the Avdiivka direction,” he said.

“Every day in the area of Bakhmut, the enemy makes 40 to 50 attempts at offensive assaults, conducting more than 500 attacks using the full range of available weapons.

CNN cannot independently verify Ukraine’s battlefield claims of Russian losses. Both sides claim the other has suffered huge losses. 

The founder and head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, last month said Bakhmut "has already practically destroyed the Ukrainian army," adding that "unfortunately" Wagner has "been pretty battered" as well.

Some background: The city of Bakhmut sits towards the northeast of the Donetsk region, about 13 miles from Luhansk region, and has been a target for Russian forces for months. Since last summer the city has been a stone's throw from the front lines, so its capture would represent a long sought-after success for Moscow's forces — and bring some limited strategic value. The city has important road connections to other parts of the Donetsk region; eastwards to the border with Luhansk, north-west to Sloviansk and south-west to Kostiantynivka.

CNN's Rob Picheta contributed to this post.

Russian forces have carried out a wave of strikes against Ukraine, and continue to focus their offensive efforts on the country's eastern Donetsk region.

Elsewhere, a Russian mine has exploded at the Zaporizhizhia nuclear plant, and Ukraine is celebrating the one-year anniversary of when it says it sank Russia's Moskva warship.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russia's embassy in Oslo, Norway, on April 13. (Victoria Klesty/Reuters)

Norway has expelled more than a dozen employees of the Russian embassy in Oslo Thursday who it says are working as intelligence agents for Moscow. 

The move comes in response to an increasing intelligence threat from Moscow and a “deteriorating security situation” in Europe, according to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It said it had been monitoring the 15 embassy workers and have found them to be “engaging in activities that are not compatible with their diplomatic status.”

They have been declared to be personae non gratae, stripped of diplomatic immunity, and must leave the country “shortly,” the ministry said in a statement. 

The expulsion comes amid wider security concerns among European countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“Russia currently poses the greatest intelligence threat to Norway. We take this very seriously, and are now implementing measures to counter Russian intelligence activities in our country,” Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said.

The decision comes a year after the expulsion of three Russian intelligence officers who were also working under diplomatic cover in Oslo.

“I would like to emphasize that Norway is seeking to maintain normal diplomatic relations with Russia, and that Russian diplomats are welcome in Norway,” Huitfeldt said.

But Norway will not accept that diplomatic missions are “misused for the purposes of carrying out covert intelligence activities," she added.

Russia's Prosecutor General's Office said Thursday it has launched an investigation into a video that purports to show the beheading of a captured Ukrainian solider.

“In the course of monitoring the Internet, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has found photographic and video materials containing, presumably, scenes of the murder of an allegedly Ukrainian serviceman,” an official statement reads.

The statement specifies the probe is related to video of "an unknown person in camouflage in the summer season" that "uses violence with a knife against an unknown serviceman, as a result of which he causes his death".

The Prosecution has submitted the materials to investigating authorities for probing in order to “assess the authenticity of these materials and make an appropriate decision.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he doubts the “reliability” of reports of broad infighting between Russian officials.

“I don’t know what these reports (of infighting) are based on, but I’m doubting their reliability and the author’s understanding of the essence of what is happening inside Russia," said in response to a CNN question about a New York Times report on a new batch of classified US intelligence documents.

The NYT says the documents, which it reports were posted on a Discord server, show infighting between the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Defense Ministry over Russia’s casualty count for the war in Ukraine. 

Peskov was also asked specifically about a reported meeting on February 22 between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, likely to resolve a public dispute over ammunition supply.

“I know nothing about it," he said.

Aerial view of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on June 30, 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images)

An additional online leak of classified US intelligence documents suggests broad infighting between Russian officials, including some within the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Defense Ministry, the New York Times reported Thursday. 

CNN has not independently verified the documents. The NYT said it had shown the new 27-pages of documents to multiple US officials, who did not dispute the information but “could not, and would not, independently verify the documents”.

CNN has contacted the Pentagon for comment.

The United States has said that the first set of documents released last week were authentic, but has said that some of the documents were not legitimate and had been altered. 

The NYT says the documents, which it reports were posted on a Discord server, show infighting between the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Defense Ministry over Russia’s casualty count for the war in Ukraine. 

The new documents also indicate that Russian President Vladimir Putin called Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to a meeting believed to have taken place on February 22 to likely resolve a public dispute over ammunition supply, the NYT reports. 

Prigozhin had accused Russia’s defense establishment of creating “major problems” with ammunition supplies for his troops. 

He went as far as accusing the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry of “treason” for failing to get ammunition to Wagner fighters and “also not helping with air transport.”

On February 23, CNN reported Prigozhin said that a shipment of ammunition was now on its way to his fighters, in a message and voice note published on his Telegram channel.

The NYT report says the documents detail US monitoring of Russian intelligence and apparatus and military command.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant outside Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 29, 2023. REUTERS/ (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

A Russian mine has exploded near the engine room of a reactor at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), according to Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom.

"The Russian occupiers continue to turn Zaporizhzhia NPP into a military base by mining the perimeter around the plant. And these actions cannot but have consequences," the company said in a statement on Thursday. 

"Europe's largest nuclear facility continues to suffer from the arbitrariness of the Russian military and their henchmen, while Ukrainian personnel are desperately trying to maintain nuclear and radiation safety across the continent," the statement continues.

The plant sits in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. It has been held by Russian forces for some 12 months but is operated by its Ukrainian staff.

Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of threatening nuclear terrorism, particularly around the plant. 

On March 29, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been working to make the plant safe, said he was "working with management in both Kyiv and Moscow to implement measures to protect the plant."

European countries have condemned Russia after a video purporting to show a Ukrainian soldier being beheaded emerged online.  

Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra tweeted that he is “deeply appalled” by the alleged beheading, calling it a “vile, barbaric act and a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions.” 

And Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson tweeted that Sweden will work to find the perpetrators.

“Sweden will do all in our power, also during our Presidency of the Council of the EU, to ensure that the perpetrators of the atrocities committed during Russia's aggression in Ukraine will be held to account,” Kristersson’s government account tweeted.  

“We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Russian police investigators attend the scene of an explosion in St Petersburg, Russia, on April 2. (Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images)

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has named an alleged accomplice in the attack on pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed in the St. Petersburg cafe blast on April 2.

Ukrainian citizen Yuriy Denisov was involved in the preparation for what was later classified as a terrorist attack in the cafe that killed the blogger and injured over 50 people, according to the FSB statement.

Denisov allegedly passed the figurine with an explosive device to 26-year-old anti-war protester Daria Trepova, who was later arrested and charged with terrorism in connection with Tatarsky’s death. CNN is not able to independently verify the claims.

“It was established that the murder of M. Fomin [Vladlen Tatarsky’s real name], together with D. Trepova, was prepared by a member of the Ukrainian sabotage and terrorist group, citizen of Ukraine Yuriy Denisov, born in 1987, who, through the ‘express delivery’ service via an intermediary, transferred an explosive device to her in Moscow, camouflaged as a plaster figurine of the military reporter," reads the statement.

The FSB said it believes Denisov came to Russia from Kyiv via Latvia “on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services” to collect information about the blogger.

Denisov left Russia the day after the explosion, the statement added.

Tatarsky was one of Russia’s most outspoken and ultranationalist military bloggers, known for his ardent pro-war commentary and occasional criticism of Moscow’s battlefield failures.