American instructor reveals Ukrainian frontline death rates

The Ukrainian military is taking massive casualties in the battle for Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut by Kiev), which is the lynchpin of the Donetsk frontline, the US Mozart Group has revealed to Newsweek.

The retired Marine who heads the group, which claims charity status but also trains Ukraine’s military, alleges that some units are seeing casualty rates of 70% and more.

With the Ukrainian military tightly controlling media access to the front, Mozart is notable for regularly posting photos and videos of what is going on, “which is an absolute annihilation of Ukrainian frontline towns to an extent that I have not seen in the media,” Andrew Milburn, who was a colonel in the US Marines, told the magazine.