It appears the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is about to fall.
After a months-long siege by Russian forces, Ukrainian army units are methodically egressing from the city before they become completely surrounded.
Once a city of some 75,000 people, Bakhmut is now a smoking ruin with most of its pre-war population gone or dead, with few die-hards remaining. Not a strategic place in any proper use of the word, but a place of prominence nevertheless as thousands of Russians have been killed and wounded here. The Ukrainians, too, have suffered terrible casualties, but at a lower scale to the Russians.
Despite its reduced significance, the Ukrainians tenaciously held on to it, taking note that they were inflicting brutal casualties on the Russians who, for the most part, have relied on human wave type tactics and frontal assaults involving prisoners or mobilized and poorly trained men. And that was the key benefit to Ukraine, that Bakhmut was a slaughterhouse and that, by holding, the Ukrainians were inflicting lasting damage to the Russian war effort.
With hundreds of thousands of men in theatre, and joined by the Wagner Group, the Russians have managed to overwhelm the defenders by sheer numbers, and while a staggering number do go on to become “cannon-fodder,” many more are beginning to make an appearance inside the city’s suburbs. At this point, all roads leading into and out of Bakhmut are under fire control of Russian artillery, making any Ukrainian pull-out a potentially dangerous one.
It’s beyond Bakhmut where the real prize lies for the Russians, as that’s the direction in which the administrative border of Donetsk region is located. Putin wants, at the very least, to get to that border and have the entirety of Donetsk Oblast in his hands. Anything less than that would be a humiliation, and Putin’s not really into humiliation.
Remaining Ukrainian troops appear to be engaged in a fighting withdrawal from the city, buying time for the reinforcement of another strong defensive position at Chasiv Car, about 15 kilometres west of Bakhmut. It’s expected that Chasiv Yar will be the next stronghold that Russia needs to throw itself at in order to get control of the territory that Putin demands be taken by the end of the month.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 