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Russia’s claim of victory in Bakhmut suggests that the brutal urban fighting that marked the deadliest battle of the war in Ukraine may be over. But what comes next is unclear.
While Moscow sees the moment of “Mission Accomplished”, Ukraine – although it insists that Bakhmut has not yet fallen – sees an opening to seize the initiative from the periphery if Russian forces no longer advance within the city limits.
Russia’s capture of Bakhmut would be a powerful symbolic success for Moscow, the first Ukrainian city captured since Lysychansk last summer, and a setback for Kyiv, which has wasted precious ammunition and sent some of its most capable troops to try to undermine Russia in months. . attack.
But the city is destroyed, and controlling it does not necessarily help Moscow to its greater goal – conquering the entire eastern Donbas region – now that Ukrainian forces have destroyed Russian forces and destroyed defenses in several areas north and south of the city.
The gains will allow Ukrainian forces to continue to fire artillery at Russian forces trying to capture Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian officials. And military analysts say Moscow continues to send reinforcements to defend the city, potentially undermining the ability of Russian forces to withstand a wider counteroffensive that Ukraine says is about to launch.
A British defense intelligence assessment there said Moscow has redeployed “up to several battalions to strengthen” Bakhmut, calling it a “notable commitment” to Russian combat forces that are heavily stretched in Ukraine.
Among the questions for Russia is the intentions of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the head of Wagner’s mercenary company that led the city’s fighting, who declared victory in Bakhmut and said his soldiers would withdraw from the city on Thursday. Military analysts say it is unclear whether Mr. Prigozhin can pull out so abruptly along the hotly contested front line without dire consequences for the Russians in the city.
It is also unclear whether the Russian reinforcements sent to Bakhmut will play for Wagner’s forces or bolster Russia’s faltering defenses on the outskirts of the city.
In recent days, Russian troops clawing their way west through the city of war through the final neighborhood of high-rise apartment blocks, reaching the expanse of garages, farmhouses and open fields in the west. The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that there were still some buildings in the area.
But even as Kyiv forces withdrew from block-by-block fighting, they brought reinforcements to guard their rear positions, securing roads and supply lines west of Bakhmut. And they focused on attacking Russian positions in the north and south of the city. The battle on May 6 broke the Russian line south of the village of Ivanivske and forced the Russian soldiers into a disorderly retreat.
Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had recently captured high ground on the outskirts of the city, and that the advance would “lead to the enemy’s incident in Bakhmut.”
If the Ukrainian forces can continue their counterattack, then Russia will be on the defensive along almost the entire front line, which stretches for hundreds of miles. For months, Bakhmut has been one of the few places in Russia.
Ukrainian commanders say their aim in Bakhmut is to slow down the Russian Army in a long battle, kill as many of its soldiers as possible and buy time for Ukraine to prepare and re-prepare – with Western weapons – for a wider counterattack.
A Russian capture of Bakhmut “will mean nothing, really,” predicted Colonel Serhiy Hrabsky, war commentator for Ukrainian news media. “Russia has exhausted its offensive capabilities and that is why it is desperate to claim that it has captured Bakhmut.”
Speaking to reporters at the Group of 7 summit in Japan on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky touched on the strategic significance of the war to destroy the Russian Army. All that was left of the ruined city, he said, was “many dead Russians.”
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