Yesterday in Stockholm, during a meeting of defense ministers of the EU member states, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted for the first time that the city of Bakhmut could fall into the hands of the Russian Federation in the coming days. after months of intense struggle.

Yevgeny Prigozhin also said yesterday that the eastern part of the city of Bakhmut across the Bakhmutivka River is under the control of Wagner’s group.

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the Battle of Bakhmut since last summer.

The possibility of the capture of Bakhmut by the Russians became clearer with the capture of the city of Soledar in mid-January. After this event, Russian troops advanced to the north and south of Bakhmut, gradually capturing the territory. Currently, Bakhmut is in a difficult situation, the only way to supply Ukrainian troops is the eastern direction.

Immediately after the fall of Soledar, various Western analysts, as well as the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, began to say that the loss of Bakhmut did not matter much because the city was not of much strategic importance. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, was more reserved, saying it was difficult to say what the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian standoff in Bakhmut would be.

If Bakhmut is not of strategic importance, then why did Ukraine fight and fight heroically not to surrender this city? Even after it became obvious that the Ukrainian army would not be able to hold out for a long time in Bakhmut?

On March 3, in Bakhmut, the Ukrainian army blew up two bridges by which troops crossed from east to west. On March 5, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi visited Bakhmut to accurately assess the situation on the ground. On March 6, the first reports appeared about General Zaluzhnyi’s desire to withdraw from Bakhmut in the context of a meeting at the highest political and military level in Ukraine, which had only one issue on its agenda: the withdrawal or retention of Ukrainian troops at the most critical point of the war. On March 7, disagreements between the political and military levels in Kyiv ceased, the leadership of the Ukrainian army officially announced that it fully supports the political goal of not leaving Bakhmut.

All these fluctuations indicate that at the level of the political and military leadership of Ukraine, all alternatives were increasingly weighed and the risks and benefits of continuing the battle for Bakhmut were constantly calculated.

From a military point of view, the Armed Forces of Ukraine realized a long time ago that Bakhmut cannot be defended to the end. For this reason, as early as May 2022, the preparation of a new defense line east of Bakhmut Slovyansk – Kramatorsk began. At the time of the fall of Soledar, the Ukrainian armed forces could withdraw in order and without major losses to this new line of defense. If this strategy had been used, perhaps thousands of lives among Ukrainian troops would have been saved. At that moment, a decision was made to protect Bakhmut at any cost. For this purpose, the Ukrainian troops, which were prepared for the offensive on the Svatove-Kreminna line, in the northwest, and those that were prepared in the southeast for the offensive with the aim of returning Melitopol, the offensive was planned to start from the Zaporozhye direction.

What exactly caused such a strategy of Ukraine to concentrate the vast majority of its armed forces in the Bakhmut-Soledar direction?

Now it is difficult to answer this question. It was probably expected that the Russian armed forces would suffer huge losses – which they did – and would not be able to continue the offensive on a front of more than 1,000 kilometers. The calculation was not wrong, but it is impossible to say how correct it was. Strategically, however, Ukraine had few options, as the Kremlin leadership became increasingly obsessed with capturing Bakhmut, which became an end in itself, detached from even the ultimate outcome of the war. Vladimir Putin was somehow forced by his own political and military entourage to focus on the capture of Bakhmut, which could serve as an example of the Russian military success expected since last July. Did Putin fall into the “Bahmut” trap set by Zelensky, or did Zelensky fall into Putin’s “Bahmut” trap? Or did the two leaders fall into each other’s trap at the same time? It’s hard to estimate at this point.

Bakhmut’s fate, especially after Mr. Stoltenberg’s statements yesterday, is decided. Only a completely unexpected event could be the reason for the final withdrawal of Russian troops from the city and its surroundings. Russian “ticks” advanced too much in the west, in two directions, to the southwest and northwest. Ukrainian troops are threatened with a deadly encirclement, but the decision to resist to the end has already been made at the political and military level, including the recognition of the risk of complete encirclement and mass death of the military or imprisonment.

What will the loss of Bakhmut mean for the next stage of the war in Ukraine?

To answer this question, we must answer another question: how much of its combat potential has Ukraine lost by focusing almost exclusively on the Bakhmut direction? In a December interview, General Zaluzhnyi stated that what was needed was not mobilization, but ammunition. Meanwhile, the situation seems to have changed. In January and February, Ukraine accelerated mobilization. If at the beginning of the war, mobilization was announced only by military commissars and the order was sent only to the home address, now mobilization can be issued by several bodies, without any geographical restrictions. At the beginning of the war, there were queues of volunteers at the mobilization points. Today, these queues have disappeared.

Does Ukraine need to replace its military, which for various reasons can no longer fight, or does it need to increase the total number of military personnel in order to launch a major offensive in early April? We do not have an answer to this question either. But it is indisputable that Ukraine is aware of the need for a large-scale offensive for success – otherwise the supply of Western weapons would be unjustified.

Actually, what does Ukraine need for a successful offensive? In the same December interview, General Zaluzhnyi stated that to advance in the direction of Melitopol (and not to recapture the city!) he needed 700 armored vehicles, 300 tanks and 500 howitzers. Compare these figures with what Ukraine has received today or with what it was promised to receive.

Even under these conditions, there is no doubt that Ukraine will launch the long-awaited offensive. The great paradox is that Ukraine has fewer weapons than it needs for an offensive, but more than it can afford to not launch an offensiveRead the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro