Russian forces have spent nearly a year charting the path of destruction and death in their attempt to besiege the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, and by March, it appeared they were close to succeeding.
“The pincers are closing,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group that led the bloody Russian offensive.
He’s wrong. The pincers never ended, and now Ukrainian forces have expanded them further, recapturing territory north and south of the ruined city within days that the Russians took weeks to capture.
Moscow’s army still holds much of Bakhmut, recent Ukrainian interests around the city are small and there is no guarantee they will survive. But for the first time in months, Ukrainian soldiers are on the offensive, and the dynamics in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war appear to have changed – at least for now.
The continuation of Ukraine’s advance would reverse the situation of a few months ago, put the Russians inside Bakhmut at risk of encirclement and entrapment, and would demonstrate that the deep, fortified defenses the Russians had built Construction across Ukraine could be punctured. Success around Bakhmut would also give Ukraine a major morale boost and deal a serious blow to Russia, depriving it of the only military achievement that for months seemed to have been within reach. their.
The potential for a reversal of fortunes comes as Ukraine prepares to launch a broader counter-offensive aimed at achieving a powerful breakthrough in what has turned into a fierce, bloody but costly war. little land. While the dynamics around Bakhmut are somewhat specific to that battle, Ukrainian commanders say they hope to build on lessons learned there as they try to strike elsewhere along the way. road. 600 miles of frontline.
Colonel Andriy Biletsky, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Shock Brigade, who made the first foray into the Russian line last week, said: “When you retreat, it is very difficult to stop. “When you want to get ahead, it’s hard to get started.”
He warned that he was waiting to see if there was “a streak of five, six, seven wins” before assessing the situation of the skirmish, but he remained hopeful.
“We can say that the phase of blind defense near Bakhmut is over and now at least there will be movement on both sides,” he said.
“Wagner’s men entered Bakhmut like rats into a mousetrap,” the commander of all Ukrainian ground forces, Colonel Oleksandr Syrskyi, told soldiers during a visit to the front on Tuesday.
General Syrskyi and other Ukrainian commanders warn that fighting is still fierce and a desperate battle is still raging inside Bakhmut, where Russian forces are trying to push back the last defenders of Ukraine from the pile. ruins of the city. Five months after first entering the city, the Russians held about 90% of it.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Mailar said: “The enemy is advancing a little bit into Bakhmut itself, completely destroying the city with artillery.
Ukrainian commanders wanted to keep a tight hold on a large Russian force in and around Bakhmut, preventing a redeployment to other areas that could soon be attacked. They say that Russia has sent reinforcements to the Bakhmut region, including new tank units and fighter jets, to try to halt the Ukrainian advance.
However, Ukrainian commanders said on Tuesday that their troops were continuing to move forward.
Major Oleksandr Pantsyrny, commander of the 24th separate assault battalion “Aidar,” said Ukraine had “regained the initiative on the flanks, north and south of the city.”
Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst with Rochan Consulting, said Ukraine’s recent gains have revealed “fundamental weaknesses of Russia: lack of coordination between regular Russian units and units. Wagner, poor communication and morale.”
For months, Ukraine has insisted that before it begins to counterattack, it needs a large supply of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other weapons from its allies. Muzyka said it is remarkable that Ukraine’s interests around Bakhmut were achieved “without the use of major Western-provided platforms, such as the Bradley IFV or the Leopard tank”.
Colonel Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukrainian forces fighting in the east, said during an appearance on national television.
Without going into detail, he said the march forward was uneven, with intense battles taking place over areas the size of three football fields in some locations. He also warned that Russian forces were still trying to organize counterattacks in many places.
While his claims cannot be independently verified, Russian army bloggers also recorded Ukrainian gains around Bakhmut in the past week.
Southwest of Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders reported an advance through a forest near the village of Ivanivske, and they appeared to be moving in the direction of Klishchiivka, a small village that Wagner mercenaries had captured on 19 January after weeks of fighting.
The village was on high ground and any army that controlled it had a command post overlooking the important roads leading to Bakhmut.
Northwest of the city, the army appears to be fighting for control of the high ground around the Berkhiv Reservoir. Without mentioning the withdrawal, the Russian Defense Ministry said over the weekend that its forces were regrouping around the reservoir to “strengthen the defenses”.
Colonel Cherevatyi said there had been 36 different “clashes” between opposing armies around the city in the past two days and warned that it was a fluid and flexible situation.
Ukraine’s resolute defense of Bakhmut, a small city of limited strategic value, has come at a heavy price, with some of its most experienced soldiers killed in action there over the past year. But it prevented the Russians from advancing to lay siege to the larger cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Ukrainian officials say it also played an important role in weakening the Russian military. Officials in Kiev insist that as long as Russia’s losses outweigh Ukraine’s, the war makes sense from the grim perspective of battlefield mathematics.
Now that the Ukrainians are no longer simply taking the blows but moving forward, Ukrainian commanders and officials hope the calculus will change once again and it will be Russia who will need to decide what price they are willing to pay. to keep a city that is being wiped off the map every day.
Once a city of about 70,000 people in the Donetsk region, famous for its sparkling wine and salt mines, Bakhmut has become a symbol of the brutality of this war.
Ukrainian military officials emphasize that what is happening around Bakhmut is still only a partial success.
Ukrainian soldiers say the situation inside the city has become so dire that their commander has only sent in volunteers.
“If you enter Bakhmut, you must know that you may not be able to get out,” said one soldier. Tired and bleary-eyed, he did not reveal his name as he sat under a bus stop near the ravaged city.
His teammates said, “It’s crazy to be in Bakhmut right now. The shelling never stops.”
Carlotta Gall Report contributions from Kiev. Nataliia Novosolova And Anastasia Kuznietsova contribution research.
