A Deadly Battleground of Attrition
REPORT: Tens of thousands of lives have been lost on the deadly battleground of Bakhmut in Ukraine. It is a ruin. It is a graveyard of attrition.
(Tyler Hicks, The New York Times)
There are only ruins left in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. It is a deadly & devastated battleground. It is a graveyard of attrition. It an aching open wound.
“You have to understand, there is nothing,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said of the razed city, once home to 80,000 people, during a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, where he sought aid and weapons from the world’s wealthiest democracies.
“They destroyed everything,” Mr. Zelensky said. “There are no buildings. It’s a pity, it’s a tragedy, but for today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing on this space, just ground and a lot of dead Russians.” - The New York Times
(Ukrainian President Volomor Zelensky in Bakhmut, Ukraine - Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters)
As Russia & Ukraine trade unconfirmed competing claims of military control over the embattled city of Bakhmut, this is the foggy situation as reported by the Associated Press, today, May 21, 2023.:
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The nine-month battle for Bakhmut has destroyed the 400-year-old city in eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people in a mutually devastating demonstration of Ukraine’s strategy of exhausting the Russian military.
The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground Sunday in the invasion’s longest battle: Russia’s defense ministry reported that the Wagner private army backed by Russian troops had seized the city. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said Bakhmut was not being fully occupied by Russian forces.
Regardless, the small city has long had more symbolic than strategic value for both sides. The more meaningful gauge of success for Ukrainian forces has been their ability to keep the Russians bogged down. The Ukrainian military has aimed to deplete the resources and morale of Russian troops in the tiny but tactical patch of the 932-mile front line as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive in the 15-month-old war.
Why is the seemingly senseless fighting in Bakhmut so fierce and enduring? What is to be gained by either Russia or Ukraine in holding the city, now in ruins? Those are questions that I keep asking and that keep getting asked.
This, from the BBC on March 9, 2023:
So why are Russia and Ukraine fighting so hard over this pile of rubble? Why are both sides laying down the lives of so many of soldiers to attack and defend this city in a battle that has lasted longer than any other in this war?
Military analysts say Bakhmut has little strategic value. It is not a garrison town or a transport hub or a major centre of population. Before the invasion, there were about 70,000 people living there. The city was best known for its salt and gypsum mines and huge winery. It holds no particular geographic importance. As one Western official put it, Bakhmut is "one small tactical event on a 1,200-kilometre front line".
All this puts me to mind of the Pete Seeger song “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.” It seems that in almost every war competing forces keep taking and re-taking the same hill. And they keep dying as they take and re-take the same hill. So, again, why do Ukrainian and Russian forces keep dying as they take and re-take the same bombed-out bloody ground?
Well, as widely reported, Ukraine fights there to exhaust Russian troops & morale.
Ukrainian military leaders say their months-long resistance has been worth it because it limited Russia’s capabilities elsewhere and allowed for Ukrainian advances. - Associated Press
Russia fights there for a propaganda victory. Again, the BBC:
The Kremlin needs a victory, however symbolic. It has been a long time since the summer when Russian forces seized cities like Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Since then what territorial gains they have made have been incremental and slow.
So Russia needs a success to sell to pro-Kremlin propagandists back home. Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Co-operation Centre, told the BBC: "They are fighting a political mission, not a purely military one. Russians will continue to sacrifice thousands of lives to achieve their political goals."
Russian commanders also want to take Bakhmut for military reasons. They hope it might give them a springboard for further territorial gains. As the UK Ministry of Defence noted in December, capturing the city "would potentially allow Russia to threaten the larger urban areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk".
(Wagner mercenary force founder Yevgeny V. Prigozhin in Bakhmut, Ukraine - Prigozhin Press Service, via Associated Press)
Someone intensely invested in victory in Bakhmut is the founder and head of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He is a bad man.
Yevgeny Prigozhin has staked his reputation, and that of his private army, on seizing Bakhmut. He hoped to show his fighters could do better than the regular Russian army. He has recruited thousands of convicts and is throwing waves of them at Ukrainian defences, many to their deaths.
If he cannot succeed here, then his political influence in Moscow will diminish. Mr Prigozhin is at odds with Russia's defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, criticising his tactics and now complaining about not getting enough ammunition. There is, Mr Kuzan said, a political struggle between both men for influence in the Kremlin "and the place for this struggle is in Bakhmut and its surroundings". - BBC
So, thousands upon thousands of young men and innocent civilians are dying for purposes of propaganda, political power and public relations, not necessarily for military victory or strategic advancement. Could anything really be more heartbreaking?
Bakhmut “was known for its sparkling wine produced in underground caves. It was popular among tourists for its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th century mansions. All are now reduced to a smoldering wasteland,” says the Associated Press.
But, apparently the fighting and the killing will still go on in that “smoldering wasteland” regardless of which side claims ground or declares victory. Even though the fighting will lead to thousands of more deaths. Even though there is nothing left to actually hold, but rubble.
Only yesterday Yevgeny Prigozhin declared that his Wagner forces had taken control of Bakhmut. If true, it may have been very short-lived.
Prigozhin says that Wagner Group took the last multistory building occupied by Ukraine’s Armed Forces around noon on May 20.
He adds that on May 25, Wagner Group will begin withdrawing its forces from the city “for rest and retraining.” Until then, they’ll create defensive lines in Bakhmut, and transfer the city to the control of Russian Defense Ministry troops. Wagner Group “will return when our help is needed,” said Prigozhin.
Prigozhin noted that the battle for Bakhmut lasted 224 days. He says the operation to capture the city was implemented “to allow the battered Russian army to recover.”
But, literally while I have been writing this, there is news of a new Ukraine offensive to encircle Bakhmut. The Washington Post reports that Ukrainian forces have taken advantage of that transfer of forces between the troops of the Wagner Group and the Russian Defense Ministry.
Stanislav Bunyatov, 22, a soldier with the 24th Separate Assault Battalion who was injured on Wednesday in fighting near the villages of Klishchiivka and Ivanivske, said that his unit was able to attack during a period when Wagner mercenaries were being replaced by Russian soldiers. “They were not ready for us,” said Bunyatov.”
So, the deadly battle of Bakhmut is still going on and on, as reported today, May 21, 2023, by The Washington Post:
KOSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces have been reduced to small footholds in the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which despite its limited strategic importance has emerged as the war’s bloodiest battlefield. But they have made gains on the Russian flanks, in a move to encircle the city and extend the fight there, according to Ukrainian officials and military personnel in the field.
“I’m in the trenches. We’ve fortified ourselves in the positions” that Russia once held, Yuriy, a soldier in the Ukrainian Army’s Fifth Separate Assault Brigade, wrote in a text message from a position to the south of Bakhmut, near the village of Klishchiivka. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Around us are a lot of dead Russians,” he said.
A smoldering wasteland.
A battleground of attrition.
A lot of dead.