KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been forced to employ more professional recruits in Bakhmut to replace a dwindling supply of prisoners who are losing thousands in the longest battle. of the war, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.
The statement shows that Ukraine sees an opportunity, despite the heavy casualties it has suffered in the eastern city, to exhaust Wagner’s near-suicide prisoner attacks, which Ukrainian commanders considered one of Russia’s most effective tactics.
“This is their last position,” Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for the eastern Ukrainian force group, told Radio Liberty in an interview, referring to Wagner’s forces in Bakhmut, where the encounter Months of fierce fighting between Russia and Ukraine has left thousands of soldiers dead. and the city in ruins.
Ukrainian officials have declare that nearly 30,000 of Wagner’s 50,000 men deserted or were killed or wounded, many around Bakhmut. That number cannot be independently verified, and Ukraine has not disclosed its own losses in the region. Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, on Tuesday announced that Ukraine lost more than 11,000 troops in February.
As the battle for Bakhmut seems to be entering a decisive phase, both sides try to justify it their incredible loss in a small city has limited strategic value by presenting them as beneficial to their cause. Essentially, each makes the same statement: that the fighting there is worth the terrible cost because it is weakening the enemy.
Wagner’s founder, Yegveny V. Prigozhin, has repeatedly said that his team’s triple-digit daily casualty rate is sucking seasoned Ukrainian units into what he calls a “meat grinder.” Bakhmut”, upset their attack plans elsewhere.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that instead of withdrawing from the city, as had been rumored, Ukraine would send reinforcements into Bakhmut, where Ukrainian commanders say the fighting has limited Ukraine’s huge forces Russia.
The real strategic legacy of the battle will most likely end up being written by the victors.
Wagner’s mercenaries helped Russia make significant progress in the siege of Bakhmut, primarily by sending waves of former prisoners toward Ukrainian positions, costing Kyiv’s forces dearly. “Almost all of them were killed” in Bakhmut, Colonel Cherevaty said of the POW units.
Some analysts argue that, if Ukraine can get rid of Russian prisoners of war in Bakhmut, it will not face a wave of its attacks elsewhere. The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, said in a statement this week that the number of “Russian POWs fit for combat is not limitless.” The group echoed Ukraine’s assessment that Wagner units are diverting to higher-quality special forces due to the high losses incurred by recruits in prison.
On Monday, Mr. Prigozhin himself showed up to alarm sound, called for emergency reinforcements and ammunition to fend off a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive, which he argued could not only relieve Bakhmut’s besieged defenders but even cut off enemy forces. Wagner attacker. “Otherwise, we’re all in trouble,” he said, using a profanity in an audio message posted on social media.
Mr. Prigozhin suggested that he growing public feud with the Russian Ministry of Defense last month caused him to lose access to Russian prisons, where, as of July, he was able to recruit tens of thousands of prisoners with the promise of high wages, social rehabilitation and freedom – if they survived the deployment. He called the failure to recruit prisoners an attempt to “suck” Wagner’s blood from its “offensive potential”.
US intelligence officials in December estimated that Wagner consisted of about 10,000 professional servicemen, most of which were recruited from veterans of the Russian security forces and 40,000 former prisoners. Wagner defectors and Russian prison rights activists say prisoners are thrown into battle after just two weeks of training, and are mainly used to attack Ukrainian positions in groups small, unprotected, in order to expose the enemy’s fire position and dig personal holes for subsequent attacks.
According to Wagner defectors, Russian prison rights activists, Ukrainian officials and military commanders, Wagner leaders see prison units as consumables, with most of their members killed days or even hours after arriving at the front.
However, one employed prisoner who returned home this month after doing a six-month contract with Wagner, including around Bakhmut, described his chances of survival as akin to a coin toss, suggesting Note that different Wagner commanders used different offensive tactics. The soldier said of about 170 prisoners who enlisted from his detention center in Russia’s Ivanov region last fall, about 80 returned home without serious injuries.
The soldier, who has not been identified because of the threat of retaliation, told friends he planned to return to the front to work with Wagner, reflecting the relatively high salaries the group of mercenaries offered. pay and limited work prospects for former prisoners. .
Although Wagner lost the ability to recruit in prisons, units consisting of prisoners would almost certainly continue to appear during the war. Prigozhin and Russian human rights activists said the Russian military had recently begun recruiting prisoners.
The Russian prison service still had more than 400,000 inmates at the start of the year, according to the agency’s website, indicating a large pool of potential recruits remaining.
For Wagner, Mr. Prigozhin tried to replace the loss of prison access with a redoubled effort to attract professional fighters. fisherman recruitment appeal in recent weeks have appeared on billboards, social media and even on prime time state television programs.
In addition, social media accounts linked to Wagner have increased propaganda portraying the mercenary force as a favorite destination for Russian patriots.
In a video posted on social media channels last week, eight heavily armed men claiming to be from a demobilized Russian Army unit urged Mr Prigozhin to accept them into the ranks. mine. The videos could not be independently verified, but a few hours later Mr. Prigozhin published an audio notice accepting them.
“When people want to fight and not sit around shooting ranges or bases, it needs to be done,” he said.
Prigozhin and his allies argue that Wagner’s main task in Bakhmut is not to gain territory, but to destroy seasoned Ukrainian units that may have fought in other areas of the long front. 600 miles.
“Ukrainian forces send all their combat-ready units to Bakhmut,” Mr. Prigozhin speak at the end of January.
For example, several pro-war Russian military bloggers – an influential group that closely follows the war – reported that the increase in the intensity of the battle of Bakhmut coincided with the end of the Russian offensives. Ukraine is in the Kreminna region further north, where Kremlin forces appear to be present. regained the initiative in recent weeks. Some Western analysts take a similar view, saying the fighting in Bakhmut is beginning to wear down Ukraine’s strength ahead of an expected counter-offensive.
That operation will likely focus on the area south of Zaporizhzhia, where Ukraine is building up forces, Colonel Roman Kostenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament serving in the Ukrainian army, told Ukrainian television on Thursday. Monday.
Ukraine could try to gain access to the Russian-controlled port of Melitopol and split Russian forces in Crimea from those in eastern Ukraine, military analysts and Ukrainian officials say. “The direction of Zaporizhzhia is as dangerous as the direction to the east,” Colonel Kostenko said, referring to Russia’s parallel efforts to control the region.
In another region of southern Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday urged residents to evacuate because of shelling by Russian forces, in a tacit admission that efforts to restore normal life to the region was hindered. Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson last fall, but Russian troops remain on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, ready to attack Ukrainian civilians and troops with artillery.
The heavy casualties in Bakhmut could hamper Ukraine’s ability to launch a counter-attack there or elsewhere, creating problems similar to those faced by Russian commanders, analysts say. face off, analysts said.
Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Washington-based Center for Naval Analyses, wrote on Twitter Sunday after visiting the Bakhmut region that the resilient defense of Bakhmut has taken manpower and Russian ammunition.
“Strategies can reach a point of diminishing returns,” he writes. “This war does not benefit Ukraine as a force.”
Andrew E. Kramer reports from Kiev, Ukraine, and Anatoly Kurmanaev from Berlin. Report contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia; Ekaterina Bodyagina from Berlin; And Alina Lobzina And Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London.
