Russia takes destroyed city of Bakhmut
It took the Kremlin almost a year and cost the lives of thousands of soldiers to capture Bakhmut, but now that Russian forces appear to have control of the Ukrainian city, it is fair to question the value of what they have gained.
Russia’s state media has been triumphalist. One news anchor declared, “Mission accomplished” over the weekend in a segment that quoted a Russian fighter who compared the seizure of Bakhmut with the Soviet Union’s capture of Berlin in 1945.
By taking Bakhmut, Russia has made its most significant territorial advance since last summer, one that Moscow will try to cast to the Russian people as a sign of military prowess on the battlefield after months of embarrassing setbacks. With his government setting the narrative of the war for a domestic audience, President Vladimir Putin has largely hidden its costs, including in Bakhmut, from the Russian people.
A top Ukrainian official, Hanna Maliar, a deputy defense minister, essentially acknowledged Monday that the eastern city had been lost, saying the Russians were “mopping up” to clear the remaining Ukrainian soldiers from the ruins of Bakhmut.
Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said those few troops would continue defending their ground in order to provide “opportunities to enter the city in case of a change of circumstances” — suggesting their focus was changing from defending Bakhmut to making it difficult for Russians to hold it.
Indeed, Russia’s grip on the city is far from assured. And beyond the politics and symbolism of capturing Bakhmut, experts say it is highly unlikely Moscow can parlay the conquest of a ravaged city into further gains that would fulfill Putin’s ultimate goal of taking all of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
No independent count of the total casualties has been verifiable, and each side is seen as inflating the other’s losses while concealing its own. But Ukraine’s military has assessed that no fewer than 20,000 Russian troops were killed in the monthslong battle and more than 100,000 wounded, according to a senior Ukrainian military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Ukraine’s military strategy. He made his assessment two months ago and cautioned this was a very rough estimate.
“There are thousands still rotting there,” the official said.
Ukraine, too, has suffered from high losses. Though Ukrainian officials have refused to give a precise number, their toll most likely includes many thousands killed and wounded.
The city, once home to about 80,000 people, is mostly a pile of rubble, with no electricity, water or much else that could sustain an occupying force or serve as a base for launching further incursions into Ukrainian territory. Ukraine’s military has fallen back to far more defensible lines on higher ground outside the city.
What this means, according to military experts, is that the Russian forces, having taken Bakhmut, now have limited options for going further.
“Look up ‘Pyrrhic victory,’ ” said Ben Barry, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a research group based in London. “A victory which imposes such casualties on the side that supposedly wins the battle that it actually doesn’t help them achieve their strategic ends.”
This is most likely what Russia has achieved in Bakhmut, Barry said, though he cautioned that there were many unknowns, including the possibility that Russia had reserved its more elite, well-prepared units for additional offensive operations along the sprawling eastern front. Ultimately, though, few significant changes on the battlefield should be expected immediately, Barry and other experts said.
Russia faces another challenge, as well. Hours after declaring “victory” over the weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company that led the assault on Bakhmut, said he would withdraw his fighters beginning Thursday.
“From June 1, not a single Wagner PMC fighter will be at the forefront until we undergo re-formation, re-equipment and additional training,” Prigozhin said.
Withdrawing forces from an active front is no simple task. Given the widely reported tensions between Wagner and Russia’s military leadership, and communication problems within the Russian ranks, analysts say Ukraine will be watching for fissures to exploit.