Ukraine Prepares to Exit Bakhmut
Russia on the verge of achieving a pyrrhic victory
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address that the conditions in the eastern front is “extremely difficult. “It is literally a battle for every meter of Ukrainian land,” he said.
Over the last two weeks, the situation around Bakhmut has deteriorated considerably. Russia and Ukraine engaged each other at least 37 times in the past 24 hours. The Russian assault on Bakhmut that has been ongoing for more than six months may be coming to an end.
“Ukrainian authorities are stepping up efforts to persuade the few thousand remaining civilians to leave Bakhmut in the face of a sustained Russian assault, a regional official said on Tuesday, adding to signs that Kyiv may be preparing to retreat from a city it has defended fiercely for months.
The city, which had a prewar population of around 70,000, has steadily been emptying as the fighting has intensified. Fewer than 5,000 residents are still there, about 140 of them children, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the regional military administration, said”.
Earlier, Ukraine asked aid workers not to enter the town. Later, it only allowed people with special passes to reenter. Now, they are evacuating people. All this points to a planned withdrawal by Ukraine. They are preparing to yield the town to Russia.
The Strategy
The Russians started their fight for Bakhmut nearly seven months ago. On May 21, 2022, Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai told The Associated Press Russian forces were focused on the Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway, which he said is the only road for evacuating people and delivering humanitarian supplies.
“The road is extremely important because it’s the only connection to other regions of the country,” he said via email. “The Russians are trying to cut us off from it, to encircle the Luhansk region.”
There are three important towns that are connected by the highway Luhansk’s governor mentioned: Severodonetsk, Lysychansk and Bakhmut. I agree with experts in that Bakhmut may not be a strategically important transportation node that will affect Ukrainian operations if lost.
We have to remember we are dealing with Russia here. Redrawing the political map and presenting it to the domestic audience is very important for the Russian leadership. Capturing Luhansk and Donetsk continue to remain a top priority for Vladimir Putin.
Controlling the Bakhmut-Severodonetsk highway will offer Russia a protective barrier against Ukrainian efforts to recapture Luhansk. A better strategy would have been look for natural barriers of protection such as capturing the western banks of the siverski-donets river, secure it and then look for potential forward breaches.
But Russia never gave any importance to the terrain. It has always been a crucial weakness in Russian strategy. Their focus has always remained on highways and towns irrespective of the terrain. The effort to capture Bakhmut is no different.
John F. Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said that Russia had made incremental gains around Bakhmut in the last two days, but he played down the military significance of the city. “Even if Bakhmut were to fall, it would not have a strategic impact on the overall war,” he said. “I would go so far as to say it won’t even have necessarily a strategic impact on the fighting in that part of the country.”
In order to prevent the Russian victory from becoming a breakthrough that leads to further territorial losses, Ukraine has already dug defensive positions around Bakhmut.
It has become imperative for the Russian army to capture the town due to the international attention it has received. A win would allow Russia to build its narrative that they may be slow, but they will still win.
These narratives can sometimes be helpful, especially for domestic audiences. Putin has cast his Ukrainian invasion as a defense against western effort to destroy Russian identity. He wanted to shore up domestic support for his imperialist adventure. A war time leader needs all the support he can get from his country. Putin has no need to worry about the opposition because most of them are already poisoned, checked into Russian jail or simply thrown out of open windows.
It was the average Russians whose support Putin needed. But he wasn’t getting much because of the repeated battlefield losses the Russian army experienced in Ukraine. The soaring death toll forced the Russian army to engage in a daily recruitment drive but their performance in the battlefield made it extremely hard to find new recruits.
A win in Bakhmut will help soften those feelings of loss. The Russian army has better chance to recruit if they can build an aura of winning.
Russian Offensive is Failing
Russian forces are trying to advance on the eastern front along multiple axes rather than pushing forward along a single one. This has resulted in a series of mini-battles that stretch from Bakhmut to Kreminna.
After intense fighting for more than 12 days, the offensive has not gained the momentum one might expect. Soldiers operating on the front line cannot sustain their intensity forever. Frontline troops have to be rotated routinely, and injured soldiers must be treated. With the costs of supplying frontline troops, it is difficult for any army to sustain a months long offensive.
Data from U.K ministry of defense shows staggering losses for Russia.
A long offensive is impossible for the Russian army due to the destruction of most of its combat forces and the rapid replacement of them with poorly trained conscripts and prisoners.
The Russians will still be able to achieve small victories. However, a breakthrough that could add thousands of square kilometers to the Russian occupation chain has gone from highly unlikely to impossible. This will set the stage for next large scale battle between Ukraine and Russia.
The Pressure
After Bakhmut falls, the allies will certainly feel the weight on their shoulders increase.
A loss is still a loss.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, told a gathering of international leaders in Munich that praise and promises for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine were not enough. “There needs to be less applause and better supply with arms,” Mr. Borrell said, adding that “much more has to be done, and much quicker.”
His appeal came near the conclusion of the three-day annual Munich Security Conference, where Western officials doubled down on their resolve to support Kyiv as Russia tries to step up a new offensive in eastern Ukraine and with the war reaching the one-year mark on Friday. “Everybody knows that in order to win a war” you need tanks, he told the conference.
Though the allies repeated what they have been saying for a very long time such as supporting Ukraine in the war and staying united in their fight against Russia, the best news for the world came from Mr. Wang, China’s top diplomat, who told the gathering that “nuclear wars must not be fought.”
China has publicly stated that they will not accept a nuclear response from Russia. The message will be heard loud and clear in the Kremlin. A public statement such as this will nullify the fallback threat used by Russia, because Putin cannot continue this war without China staying neutral.
Timing is Everything
Russia’s invasion will mark its first anniversary on Friday, and in order to demonstrate its strength, Putin has ordered an offensive. He asked his army to capture Donetsk and Luhansk as a whole. All the additional resources that the Russian army has accumulated in recent months have been deployed.
The eastern offensive will deplete the Russian army, leaving them extremely vulnerable for a Ukrainian counter-offensive. It is imperative that the allies move quickly on the next tranche of weapons, rather than waiting forever. The Ukrainian counter-offensive will require the allies to plan-prepare and deliver the weapons that Ukraine will need in the middle and the end of its summer offensive.
Ukraine will achieve sustained breakthroughs if the weapons are delivered on time.
