Last Saturday Ukrainians officials acknowledged its “complete occupation”. Bahamut from Russia, and a news anchor in Russia said “mission accomplished.” The city in eastern Ukraine, around and inside which fighting has raged since last August, has now fallen into Russian hands. But at this point it is worth asking yourself what exactly the Russian army won in Bakhmut after almost a year of hostilities.

By taking the city, Russia scored the most significant victory on the battlefield since last summer and after a series of humiliating retreats elsewhere. This victory will certainly be perceived domestically as a triumph. It is not known if what the country had to sacrifice to achieve this will be mentioned.

ghost town

The Ukrainian defenses of Bakhmut may have caved in, but months of fighting have reduced the once populous city of 80,000 to a pile of rubble without electricity or running water. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Russian military would not be able to use the city as a camp or even a base, so its capture would not matter much to the president’s efforts. Putin occupy the entire Donbass.

Thousands dead

The head of Wagner, who led the attack, said that from June 1 he would withdraw his fighters from the battlefield.

Casualty figures for either camp may not have been officially released, but the Ukrainian military says at least 20,000 Russian soldiers were killed and more than 100,000 wounded. This, according to experts, means that he has no chance of launching a large-scale attack in the near future, unless he supports covert troops, which is unlikely. “This is a Pyrrhic victory,” says Ben Barry of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “A victory for which the side that achieved it has sacrificed so much that it can no longer achieve its military goals,” he explains.

One of the files recently leaked from the Pentagon and distributed to Internet users is a US intelligence report that says the Russian campaign in Donbass “wears out day by day.” “Russian tactics have led to the depletion of personnel and ammunition to such an extent that it is likely to deplete Russian units and frustrate Moscow’s military objectives, leading to an extension of the war beyond 2023,” the document says.

In addition to all this, Russia has another problem. A few hours after the announcement of “victory” in Bahamut, Mr. Evgeny PrigozhinThe head of the private military company Wagner, which led the attack, said he would withdraw his fighters from the battlefield. “From June 1, not a single Wagner fighter will be on the front lines until we regroup, rearm and undergo additional training,” Prigozhin said.

Counterattack

The withdrawal of troops from the active front is not an easy task. Analysts say that given the widely reported tensions between Wagner and the Russian military leadership, Ukraine will keep a close eye on potential “cracks” it could exploit. Such an opportunity arises at the stage of the war, when the Ukrainian army is preparing for a large-scale counteroffensive.

As both sides gear up for the next phase of hostilities, Russia’s goal of taking over the entire Donbass seems no closer than it was almost a year ago. Bakhmut stood as a wall that prevented the occupation of Donbass. The Russian army may have hit every corner of the city and eventually captured it, but they knew their only benefit from tearing down that wall was a pile of bricks.