Is Russia Losing The War? Putin's Army Suffers 'Considerable Losses' As Invasion Stalls

Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine are increasingly relying on the “indiscriminate shelling” of urban areas as they fail to capture key cities, the UK government has warned.

In its latest update on the crisis situation in Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Russia had suffered “considerable losses” since launching its invasion more than three weeks ago.

As a result, Russia has “increased its indiscriminate shelling of urban areas resulting in widespread destruction and a large number of civilian casualties”, the MoD said.

“It is likely Russia will continue to use its heavy firepower to support assaults on urban areas as it look to limit its own already considerable losses, at the cost of further civilian casualties.”

The UK assessment comes as Ukraine accused Russia of further atrocities in the besieged city of Mariupol, where the city council says an art school that was sheltering around 400 people has been attacked.

The latest assault follows Russia’s bombing of a theatre earlier this week that was thought to be sheltering more than 1,000 people.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned Russia’s relentless targeting of Mariupol, calling the bombardment a “terror that will be remembered for centuries to come”.

Pope Francis also used his Sunday address in Vatican City to call on world leaders to “stop this repugnant war”.

“The violent aggression against Ukraine is unfortunately not slowing down,” he said.

“It is a senseless massacre where every day slaughters and atrocities are being repeated.”

The MoD also warned that it was likely that Russia would continue to use heavy firepower to attack urban areas as a means to limit its own “already considerable losses”.

There were reports on Sunday that a senior Russian Navy officer had been killed.