by Lorenzo Cremonesi
Bakhmut, Kharkiv, the Kherson nuclear power plant. There is no room for a breather. And finally there is the unknown Lukashenko
FROM OUR ENVOYMENT KRAMATORSK The meaning of the Battle of Bakhmut? We’re trying to bleed the Russian units dry. They lose thousands of men and deplete ammunition reserves. A bit like in the spring, they got bogged down in Mariupol: it took them two months to take the city, and we gained valuable time that allowed us to organize our counterattacks. However, the difference today is that we will not lose Bakhmut, and even if it did happen, it would still be a victory, Ukrainian officials on the Donbass front declare. Let’s pull the strings of meetings with the military over the past three months, often spent with spokesmen of the General Staff in Kyiv and especially here, on the battlefields in the east of the country. The most obvious conclusion remains that the war goes on, there is no room for a truce or any glimmer of negotiation.
Yesterday it was clearly repeated from the Kremlin that the Zelenskyi government and Western allies must recognize Russian territorial conquests, not only Crimea or the Lugansk and Donetsk autonomous regions, but also the territories occupied since February 24. We see the Ukrainian response taking place with the military on the ground: not even a yard will be ceded, only a return to the 1991 borders will guarantee peace. Yesterday, the road from Dnipro to Kramatorsk and the disputed provinces of Donbass was crossed by endless columns of military trucks loaded with ammunition, missiles, food and petrol, accompanied by endless lines of buses, jeeps and private cars stuffed with soldiers. The ice or cold could not stop them, nor could the rain of rockets and heavy artillery shells that indifferently hit civilian areas during the night (there are a dozen dead), as well as electricity infrastructure and military posts. Between February and March last year the temperatures were close to minus fifteen, we were a lot less equipped than today, but we still fought. There is no reason for the war to slow down in the coming months, we are told in shelters dug into the frozen earth. Let’s try to summarize the situation in five points.
1) The tug of war over Bakhmut continues. The Ukrainians are building a second line of resistance along the water canal a few kilometers west of the western suburbs, but in the meantime they insist on reinforcing forward artillery positions. According to their elite units, the Wagner Brigades (the private contractors considered the most experienced veterans among Russians) have recently launched night raids with small patrols well-equipped with infrared goggles, measuring their progress in terms of a few tens of meters per day will.
2) Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are trying to break through east of Kharkiv in the direction of Svatove and further south in the direction of Soledar. The plan would be to liberate large parts of northern Lugansk and then encircle Wagner from behind.
3) The project of opening a new axis of attack in the Zaporizhia sector in the direction of Melitopol and eventually to the port city of Berdyansk remains alive.
4) On the Kherson front, work is underway to cross the Dnipro towards the Crimea and north to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. One of the key points here is the Nova Kakhovka water canal, which ensures the water supply of Crimea.
5) The concentration of Russian troops in Belarus is worrying. Few in Kyiv believe that Lukashenko intends to go to war. But Putin is pressing, and Ukrainians are being forced to divert resources from critical fronts to defend the Western Front, through which NATO military aid flows from Poland.
December 8, 2022 (change December 8, 2022 | 23:39)
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