- It looks increasingly likely that Russia could gain the upper hand in Bakhmut, occupying parts of the city and surrounding it to the north, east and south.
- However, Ukraine has vowed to fight to the death in Bakhmut and said it will not give up.
- Both sides have deployed thousands of fighters over the seven months of escalating conflict in the region, making the stakes high for both the armies of Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian infantrymen of the 28th Brigade view damaged buildings as they drive to a front line position facing Russian forces, outside Bakhmut, Ukraine March 05, 2023.
John Moore | News from Getty Images | Getty Images
After seven months of fighting over the industrial city of Bakhmut in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, it is not surprising that neither Ukraine nor Russia are surrendering over their defenses – or wanting to conquer them.
But now it looks increasingly likely that the sheer weight of manpower expended in relentless fighting there, particularly Moscow’s mercenary troops in the Wagner Group, could give Russia the upper hand.
On Wednesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, The leader of the Russian mercenary forces fighting in Bakhmut (a town Russia calls “Artemovsk”) said Wagner had taken full control of the eastern part, according to comments published by the Russian state news agency Tass.
Though its forces appear vulnerable to encirclement, Ukraine pledged on Monday to continue defending the city and sending reinforcements, defying expectations that a tactical withdrawal was on the cards.
Both Russia and Ukraine have thrown masses of personnel into their attempts to capture and defend Bakhmut, respectively, with each claiming to have inflicted hundreds of casualties on each other’s forces every day.
Aside from atonement for these sacrifices with some kind of victory at Bakhmut, there are several other reasons why both sides have a reason to keep fighting to the bitter end, from the symbolic to the militarily meaningful.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the decision to defend Bakhmut shows that nowhere in Ukraine is “giving up”, an important psychological and symbolic message to Ukrainian fighters that defending their country after a year of fighting is important.
Still, the merits of fighting on in Bakhmut — a town of around 70,000 people known before the war for its salt mining industry — have been called into question, with military analysts and officials noting that even if Bakhmut does fall into Russian hands, he will have won not change the course of the war dramatically.
An aerial view of the destruction in Bakhmut on February 27, 2023. Russian forces appear to be tightening the noose around the Donetsk city.
– | AFP | Getty Images
“I think it’s more of a symbolic value than a strategic and operational value,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters Monday when asked about the significance of the Battle of Bakhmut.
“The fall of Bakhmut does not necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this battle,” he added, noting that he would not predict when Bakhmut might fall to Russian forces.
Ukrainian officials say the city is now mostly in ruins, diminishing any value it might have to Russia while to Kiev it’s part of Ukraine. “I think it’s more about symbolic value than actual strategic value,” Yuriy Sak, an adviser at Ukraine’s defense ministry, told CNBC.
“It’s not a big city… now it’s ruins, it’s pulverized. There are a few thousand people living in underground dwellings, but it is a deserted city, with constant artillery and street fighting. Strategically I think it’s more of a symbol for both sides now, so we call it the ‘Fortress’ of Bakhmut,” said Sak.
Private military company Wagner has a lot to prove in Bakhmut as it seeks to bolster its credibility within the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (with which Prigozhin has been very openly in dispute), as well as in the Russian public and military blogosphere.
Michael Clarke, former director-general of Britain’s defense and security think tank RUSI, agreed on Tuesday that “Bakhmut does not have enormous strategic value,” but noted that both Russia and Ukraine attach special symbolic importance to the city.
“For seven months the Wagner group … has targeted Bakhmut to show they can gain ground when the rest of the Russian army is losing ground. So it’s become a massively symbolic issue,” Clarke told BBC Radio, adding he didn’t think Bachmut’s fall was inevitable but said it was “highly likely”.
“Ukrainians are now in a situation where they have to decide whether to live with the symbolic problem of giving up or losing more troops to the defense.”
A soldier of a Ukrainian assault brigade walks down a muddy road carrying and positioning British-made 105mm L118 howitzers March 4, 2023 near Bakhmut, Ukraine.
John Moore | News from Getty Images | Getty Images
Whether Ukraine will be able to continue to resupply its troops in Bakhmut is a critical question. On Tuesday, Britain’s Ministry of Defense found that a Russian attack destroyed a bridge over the only paved supply road to Bakhmut still under Ukrainian control to Bakhmut, noting in an intelligence report that “muddy conditions are likely to hamper Ukraine’s resupply efforts as they become increasingly… fall back on the use of unpaved paths.”
Clarke said south-west Bakhmut currently still offers a route in and out of Bakhmut for Ukraine, but once that route is cut off “they have to get out”.
Russia has made no secret that it sees the capture of Bakhmut as a way to cut off Ukrainian supply routes in the wider Donetsk region, which is a key Russian military objective. Bakhmut serves as a transport hub for Ukraine supplying its troops in the region, although Ukrainian officials have sought to downplay the impact on the war effort of Bakhmut’s fall.
Ukrainian military vehicles drive on a road outside the strategic town of Bakhmut on January 18, 2023 in Bakhmut, Ukraine. Russia has ramped up its offensive in the Donetsk region in the new year, with the region’s Kiev-appointed governor accusing Russia of using scorched-earth tactics.
Spencer Platt | News from Getty Images | Getty Images
Nonetheless, Ukraine fears that Russia will use the city as a springboard to invade other cities in eastern Ukraine and consolidate its military occupation of the region.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyi warned that Russian troops will have “the road open” to key cities in eastern Ukraine if they capture Bakhmut.
“This is tactical for us,” Zelenskyy told CNN, stressing that Kiev’s military leadership is united in continuing to defend the city. “We understand that they could go further after Bakhmut. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be an open road for the Russians to Bakhmut to other cities in Ukraine, towards Donetsk. That’s why our boys are there.”
Ukraine’s fears that capturing Bakhmut would allow the Russians to advance further are not shared universally. Analysts say Russia used up so many workers during the Battle of Bakhmut that it could leave them exhausted.
Experts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank note that Bakhmut is not “intrinsically important operationally or strategically” but note that Russia’s capture of Bakhmut is “necessary but not sufficient for further Russian advances” in the region Donetsk is.
“Russian forces have already suffered such heavy casualties in the battle for the city that their attack will very likely peak after they have secured it – if not before. The loss of Bakhmut is therefore not a major operational or strategic concern for Ukraine as Foreign Minister Austin and others have observed,” an analysis said Monday.
Ukraine says there’s another reason to keep fighting at Bakhmut if Russia’s best combat units are being used up in the process.
The Defense Ministry said on Monday that the commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, revisited the units defending Bakhmut and found that “the enemy had thrown Wagner’s additional forces into the battle” and that the Ukrainian forces “would have inflicted significant casualties”. on the enemy, destroyed a large amount of equipment, forced Wagner’s best assault units into battle, and reduced the enemy’s offensive potential.
Defense analysts note that even now, Wagner’s founder Priogozhin appears concerned that the Battle of Bakhmut, ISW analysts said, “could seriously weaken the best forces in the Wagner group and deprive Russia of some of its most effective and hard-to-replace shock troops.” .
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close ally of Vladimir Putin, is the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group and a number of other companies.
Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images
“The financier of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, apparently fears that his forces will be spent precisely in this way. Prigozhin issued a series of statements on March 5-6 indicating he fears that the Russian Defense Ministry will fight the Battle of Bakhmut to the last Wagner fighters and expose its forces to destruction,” the ISW- analysts.
For Ukraine, the severe deterioration or destruction of Wagner’s elite force would have positive repercussions beyond the battlefield, the ISW said, noting that Prigozhin’s increasing notoriety and status with the Russian public has contributed to a wider spread of Wagner’s militarism and ideology throughout the country have led Russia.
“Seriously damaging the power and reputation of Prigozhin in Russia would be an important achievement from the point of view of the long-term prospects of restoring sanity in Russia. This is a goal in both America’s and Ukraine’s interests, and it raises the stakes in the Battle of Bakhmut beyond terrain and battlespace geometry,” the ISW said.