Russia kept up the intensity of its ceaseless assault on Bakhmut and continued to target civilian objectives, causing casualties, the Ukrainian military said on March 15, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed to keep defending the city in the eastern region of Donetsk and inflict maximum losses to the enemy.
Russia launched more than 90 unsuccessful attacks along the front line in the east, with a focus on Bakhmut, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its daily briefing on March 15.
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The General Staff said in a later message that Russian forces continue "to storm the city of Bakhmut." The message said that the other main efforts of the Russian Army are concentrated in the Lyman, Avdiyivka, Maryinka, and Shakhtarsk directions.
"Due to the inability to defeat the Defense Forces of Ukraine, the Russian Federation uses terror tactics. It is shelling populated areas, thereby grossly violating the norms of International Humanitarian Law," the General Staff said.
Speaking after a virtual meeting of the so-called Ramstein group of countries that have backed Kyiv militarily, U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Russia was making small tactical advances near Bakhmut but "at great cost."
Milley added that Russia's military leaders are failing their troops, and he said military stocks are being rapidly depleted.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, also speaking after the Ramstein group meeting, said that Russia is now "running out of options" after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.
"Russia had to depend on Iran and North Korea and use World War II equipment. So Russia is running out of opportunities and friends," Austin said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin now can see that the United States and the Ramstein group will support Ukraine's right to defend itself in the long term, he said.
"But Putin still hopes that he can exhaust Ukraine and wait us out. So we cannot stop and we will not do it," Austin added.
Ukraine carried out eight strikes on areas where Russian personnel and military equipment were concentrated, the General Staff said. Ukrainian missiles and artillery hit a control post, three areas of concentration of personnel and military equipment, two radar stations, an electronic warfare station, and an antiaircraft missile complex in a firing position, the message said.
It was reported earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces shot down a Russian Su-25 aircraft. It was not possible to verify the battlefield claims.
In southeastern Ukraine, Russian troops struck the town of Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region, killing two women, according to Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the region. In addition, seven high-rise buildings, four private houses, and an outbuilding were damaged.
The Prosecutor-General's Office reported that Marhanets was hit by artillery fire. Law enforcement officers and rescuers were at the scene.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar told Ukrainian television on March 14 that heavy fighting had taken place around Kreminna and other settlements north of Bakhmut.
Russian forces launched 40 airstrikes, 12 missile strikes, and more than 100 rocket salvoes over the previous 24 hours, the military said early on March 15.
A rocket attack on civilian infrastructure in the Kherson region settlement of Ivanivka caused victims among the local population and damage to property, the report said.
The Kherson regional military administration chief Oleksandr Prokudin said four people were wounded by Russian shelling the previous day that targeted apartment buildings in Kherson city.
On March 14, a Russian missile hit an apartment building in Kramatorsk, some 50 kilometers northeast of Bakhmut, killing one civilian and wounding three others.
WATCH: A Russian missile hit an apartment building in Kramatorsk, killing one civilian and wounding three others, on March 14.
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Russian Missile Hits Apartments In Ukraine’s Kramatorsk
Separately, the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyryklenko, said Russian shelling late on March 14 caused the city of Kurakhovo to lose electricity.
Zelenskiy said in his evening video address on March 14 that Ukraine's top military command unanimously favors defending the sector of eastern Ukraine that includes the besieged city of Bakhmut and inflicting maximum losses on the enemy.
The military command's main focus was on Bakhmut during its meeting, Zelenskiy said, adding that there was "a clear position of the entire command: Strengthen this sector and destroy the occupiers to the maximum."
Zelenskiy has also removed the governors of the regions of Luhansk, Odesa, and Khmelnytskiy, the government's parliamentary representative said on March 14, without giving any reason for the president's move.
The dismissals of Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Hayday, Odesa regional Governor Maksym Marchenko, and Khmelnytskiy regional Governor Serhiy Hamaliy had been at their own request, according to decrees published on March 15.