Photo taken of a Ukrainian soldier in Bakhmut by Anatolii Stepanov
This last week has seen the beginning of the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the fortified city of Bakhmut. This partial evacuation is costing the Ukrainian armed forces (UAF) dearly in casualties as the withdrawal is being carried out along muddy country roads under constant shelling from Russian artillery. The Ukrainian Telegram channel “Resident” has observed:
Our source in the OP said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are losing equipment when withdrawing from Bakhmut, all roads are under fire and constant Russian artillery is constantly firing. [General] Syrsky brought the situation to the operational encirclement of the city and now the General Staff is forced to throw elite units to unblock the roads.
The military analysis from the Slavyangrad Telegram channel is that the UAF have posted numerous videos allegedly showing UAF infantry retreating on muddy roads in pickup trucks which get stuck. Under constant Russian fire they often abandon their heavy weapons.
Meanwhile, the Military Chronicle has observed that regular troops have abandoned their positions on several occasions after being subjected to intense artillery fire.
Disagreements between Zelensky and Zaluzhny continue to grow
The situation around Bakhmut is causing disagreements between President Zelensky and Zaluzhny the commander in chief of the AFU. The German newspaper Bild has noted that Zaluzhny has urged Zelensky to order the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the strategically important city yet the Ukrainian president is adamant that the defence of the city should continue. On Monday of this week President Zelensky held a meeting with his generals and the message from the meeting was that Bakhmut would not be abandoned.
The reasons for this decision are not clear. Is is a projection of defiance designed to please Kiev’s Western sponsors? Or is it an attempt to buy time for the AFU as it prepares defensive lines to the west of the city? Information from both Ukrainian and Russian military analysts suggests that is probably a bit of both.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin recently commented that the defence of Bakhmut was largely a symbolic affair and that the city held no operational or strategic importance. This prompted Russian military analysts Boris Rozhin to quip:
The Pentagon said that Artemovsk (Bakhmut) has no operational or strategic significance. Only symbolic. Previously, they had no operational or strategic significance – Mariupol, Popasnaya, Severodonetsk, Lsyichanksk, Soledar … The main thing is that for this very symbolic meaning, the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are utilized in very no-symbolic quantities.
Symbolic or not, the decision to hold the city is not going down well with the hard pressed defenders of the city. Bild quotes a Ukrainian military analysts who said;
The vast majority of our soldiers in Bakhmut don’t understand why the city continues to be held. The guys in Bakhmut are asking questions: What is the strategy? Why do we need to entrench ourselves when the enemy is surrounding us?
The Kiev Independent recently ran an article, which contained interviews with numerous infantrymen fighting in Bakhmut, with the headline, Ukrainian Soldiers In Bakhmut: ‘Our troops are not being protected.’
During brief visits to the front lines the author of this piece, Igor Kossov, spoke with infantrymen who spoke of;
unprepared, poorly-trained battalions being thrown into the front line meat grinder to survive as best they could with little support from armoured vehicles, mortars, artillery, drones and tactical information.
Kossov notes that the situation for the defenders of Bakhmut is getting worse by the day;
Bakhmut has been the site of very heavy fighting for months, but in the past few weeks, Russian attacks have intensified to an insane degree according to most interviewees.
Multiple soldiers say that they are under massive assault from both Wagner Group mercenaries and regular Russian forces.
Ukrainian soldiers complained of dire shortage of ammunition while Russian forces have an an abundance of artillery shells with which to attack their positions. Ilia, a mortar man from the National Guard observed that he is unable to provide supporting fire to the men in the trenches as
When we get ammo, we get 10 shells per day, 120 millimetre shells. That's enough for one minute of work.
Kossov goes onto note that the disorganization goes beyond the shortage of ammunition and infantry fighting vehicles, and ‘ that logistics and signals are of very poor quality.’ As if that wasn’t bad enough he laments the terrible lack of training of soldiers sent into the meat grinder that is Bakhmut:
Multiple soldiers say Bakhmut troops are barely given enough time to learn to shoot a rifle – sometimes their training is just 2 weeks, before they’re dropped into the hottest parts of the most intense current battle of the war.
Kossov finishes his piece off by noting that this is causing heavy casualties amongst Ukrainian infantry:
Oleksandr confirms that while some battalions fighting in Bakhmut are well-trained and ready, most of them aren’t and many were thrown in at night without much preparation. “Yes, that’s true, my battalion was not prepared,” he says. After five months without a single break from the fighting, only half of Oleksandr’s battalion is left, he says.
Another soldier with the call sign Serhiy said;
When you go out to a position it’s not even a 50/50 chance that you’ll come out of there (alive). It’s more like 30/70.
Source Al Jazeera Institue for the Study of War
Despite the carnage UAF units are conducting counter attacks both to the north and south of the city to maintain a physical corridor from Bakhmut in case of full withdrawal from the city. According to Russian military analysts from the Rybar Telegram channel, the general staff of the Ukrainian army is sending newly created brigades to the centre of the city to fend off advancing units from the Wagner battle group.
On Monday Wagner troops took photographs of themselves planting a flag at the T-34-85 tank monument in the centre of the city.
Last night numerous small groups of UAF troops tried to leave Bakhmut under the cover of darkness. At the same time Ukrainian forces are forming a strike force to attack the flanks and rear of advancing Wagner units.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian counter attacks continue in the Ivanovsky area and on the outskirts of Chasov Yar in an effort to preserve UAF supply routes.
Numerous sources - both Ukrainian and Russian - indicate that the fall of Bakhmut is only a matter of time. This prognosis is confirmed by military figures in the West speaking to the German newspaper Die Welt. Gustav Gressel, a military analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations Center told Die Welt;
A few days ago, the nearby Krasnaya Gora was evacuated, I think Artemovsk [Bakhmut] will soon suffer the same fate.
Other Western analysts agree and predict dire consequences for Ukraine once its troops retreat from Bakhmut. Colonel Markus Reisner, Commander of the Guards of the Armed Forces of Austria, states that the fall of Bakmut will prevent a widely anticipated UAF offensive in the Melitopol region due to heavy casualties defending the city. He has observed;
If Artemovsk [Bakhmut] is taken, the second line of defence will also fall, and Ukrainian troops will have to retreat in the Donbass to the city line Slavyansk-Kramatorsk.
If Colonel Reisner is correct in his assessment then the fall of Bakhmut will lead to a collapse of the whole Ukrainian front putting on hold the UAF’s widely predicted spring offensive. If this occurs don’t be surprised if Russia launches a major offensive designed to break the back of the Ukrainian army. This would be reminiscent of Operation Bagration, an offensive launched by the Red Army in the summer of 1944, which destroyed Army Group Centre and paved the way for the drive on Berlin.
