Ukraine forces Russian troops ‘to impale themselves on’ Bakhmut and then reload
Joel Gehrke
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Russia’s top mercenary chief is launching a new recruitment drive, continuing a public dispute with regular defense officials following battlefield losses that could sap the next Russian offensive.
“Recruitment centers for PMC Wagner have opened in 42 Russian cities,” Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin posted on social media. “Despite the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will move forward.”
Prigozhin has spearheaded a protracted assault on Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the primary area where Russian forces have mounted offensive operations as Ukrainian counterattacks forced Russian withdrawals from major cities. The bloody struggle for Bakhmut has exposed an acrimonious rift between the mercenaries and Russian defense officials as Ukrainian forces try to make the Russian advance as costly as possible.
“Russia … has converged on Bakhmut with a large part of its trained military personnel, the remnants of its professional army, as well as the private companies,” one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, said in a new interview with La Stampa, an Italy-based publication. “We, therefore, have two objectives: to reduce their capable personnel as much as possible, and to fix them in a few key wearisome battles, to disrupt their offensive and concentrate our resources elsewhere, for the spring counter-offensive. So, today Bakhmut is completely effective, even exceeding its key tasks.”
MONEYBALL FOR DEFENSE SPENDING?
The months of fighting have been costly for both sides. The high Ukrainian losses were exemplified this week by the death of a young Ukrainian officer who earned in December the “Hero of Ukraine” award, the nation’s highest honor. The extent of Russia’s losses is suggested by frequent public protests from mobilized Russian conscripts who complain that they are being transferred to the front lines without lawful orders or proper training.
“We, absolutely untrained, were forced to assault villages … without reconnaissance, without communications, without scouting,” one Russian conscript officer said this week, according to the War Translated project, in a video published to explain why he and his few remaining men refuse to continue to fight under so-called separatist militia commanders. “Generally speaking, it’s some complete bullshit.”
Prigozhin has accused Russian defense officials of sabotaging his operations by depriving his men of ammunition, a rhetorical war that continued through his recruitment update. “Despite the spanners that [the Russian Defense Ministry] are throwing in the works at every turn, we will overcome this together,” he said, according to the Moscow Times.
The mercenary chief acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are putting up “colossal resistance” but insisted the campaign would succeed. Many analysts downplayed the strategic value of Bakhmut through the Wagner Group’s early failures, but Zelensky justified the high cost of defending the town on the grounds that it blocks further Russian attacks and undercuts their morale.
“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further … it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction,” Zelensky told CNN on Tuesday. “Russia needs at least some victory — a small victory — even by ruining everything in Bakhmut, just killing every civilian there … [to] mobilize their society in order to create this idea they’re such a powerful army.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin downplayed the value of Bakhmut on Monday as he contemplated the prospect of Ukraine “relinquishing the city. Former CIA Director David Petraeus, who commanded “the surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq to suppress sectarian violence in 2007, has suggested that the intensity of the struggle for Bakhmut could leave Russian forces without enough troops to take advantage of any eventual victory.
“I think, at this moment, using Bakhmut to allow the Russians to impale themselves on it is the right course of action, given the extraordinary casualties that the Russians are taking,” Petraeus told Politico’s European affiliate. “Some of Russia’s best troops are there as well. So, the Russians are committing an enormous amount of their resources on a very costly offensive, the outcome of which is still uncertain … Obviously, this all hinges a bit on an assumption that the Russians don’t have inexhaustible manpower, and I think that’s the case right now.”
The battle for Bakhmut has raged throughout a winter in which both sides have been scrambling to prepare for a major clash in the spring. U.S. and European allies are racing to supply tanks and other heavy weaponry to Ukraine, whereas Russian forces have bombarded Ukrainian energy infrastructure and implanted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization orders.
“The frontline, our defense, the battle for Bakhmut and the entire Donbas. This is the first priority,” Zelensky said earlier this week in one of his regular addresses. “We are doing everything to ensure that our tactical steps contribute to the strategic goal — the success of Ukraine in the battle for the entire temporarily occupied territory of our state.”
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Russia bombarded Ukraine with scores of missiles on Thursday, the “first major wave of long-range strikes” since mid-February, according to British assessments.
“The interval between waves of strikes is probably growing because Russia now needs to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses,” the U.K. Defense Ministry’s defense intelligence team wrote on Twitter.