“Bakhmut never had the strategic importance of Kyiv, the capital, or the port city of Odesa, or Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, or even Donetsk, the regional capital some 50 miles north of Bakhmut. The former mining city was best known for its sparkling wine.” -Sinéad Baker
The struggle for Bakhmut lasted 320 days and was the bloodiest battle of the Ukraine War so far. While the strategic value of the city was questionable, the slog became symbolically important for both sides. Described as a meat grinder by many sources, the fighting often resembled World War 1, with heavy artillery, human wave attacks, and trench warfare. Despite seeing the most destructive urban combat in Europe since World War 2, the Battle of Bakhmut showed limited strategic effects when it ended. However, besides symbolic importance the impact of the struggle became clear in the summer of 2023.
After Russia’s costly conquests of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in July 2022, it first advanced on Bakhmut as part of a bigger effort to encircle and destroy large Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine. While this failed Russia continued the advance on Bakhmut as it was a notable transport and logistical hub, whose capture would expose Ukraine’s remaining cities in Donetsk Oblast. Put simply, the city was a stepping stone to complete the occupation of the Donbas, Putin’s supposed main objective of the war after failing to conquer Ukraine at the start of the conflict.
The importance of Bakhmut to Russia increased after Ukraine’s crushing counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast that liberated 12,000 square kilometres, humiliated the Russian Army, and forced Putin to declare a partial mobilization in September 2022. Putin’s regime needed a victory, even if only symbolic, to appease the home front and re-establish the credibility of Russian forces. Ukraine would also invest heavily in the battle to wear out and pin down Russian forces, and stall their advance in the Donbas. However, as the struggle for the city went on it became increasingly symbolic for the Ukrainians as well, with President Zelenskyy calling Bakhmut “the fortress of our morale.”
The Battle Begins
While the main advance on Bakhmut started in August 2022, the fight for the city itself began in October after Russian forces reached its outskirts. The task of capturing Bakhmut was mostly given to the Wagner Group, a ruthless Russian mercenary organization led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Nicknamed “Putin’s chef,” he was a thug and former convict who gained influence by providing catering services to the Kremlin.
Prigozhin would gain infamy during the battle for recruiting thousands of convicts and using them as cannon fodder. He was an extremely ambitious and flamboyant character who used the struggle for Bakhmut to increase his popularity and political influence in Russia. This and increasing clashes with the Russian defense ministry would lead him to open conflict with Putin in the summer of 2023.
The Battle of Bakhmut intensified in November 2022 when the Wagner Group, reinforced by convicts and Russian forces sent from the Kherson region, increased attacks on the city. This was done with strong artillery barrages, including 261 on December 3, and alleged human wave assaults by the convicts. They were forced to advance to draw fire and reveal Ukrainian positions, while Russian forces followed behind in smaller groups to create breaches on narrow parts of the front. It was bloody and time-consuming but eventually Ukrainian forces were pushed back block by block.
Although the scale of fighting decreased in January 2023, the dynamic of the battle changed in March. While it initially looked like the Ukrainians were going to abandon the city, as recommended by American officials who questioned the strategic use of Bakhmut, Ukraine reinforced their forces instead. This allowed them to stop Russia from encircling Bakhmut, by well-executed withdrawals, forcing the Wagner Group to fight through the city and take heavy casualties. For the next two months the Russians advanced slowly, taking the city center in April and by the beginning of May the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) estimated Ukraine controlled less than 5% of Bakhmut.
As the end of the battle approached tensions increased between Prigozhin and his rivals in the Russian defense ministry. The Wagner leader accused the Russian military of poor leadership, faulty tactics, and holding back ammunition to his forces. In a notably odd video Prigozhin swore and shouted at Russia’s defense minister and chief of staff of the army, and pointed to 30 dead bodies on the ground. Al-Jazeera provided a brief excerpt:
“Shoigu, Gerasimov, where’s the ammunition, damn it? They came here as volunteers and they are dying so you can get fat in your wood-panelled offices,” he said. “These guys are from Wagner. They died today. Their blood is still fresh,” he said, adding that army chiefs “will go to hell” for not sending weapons.”
Relations only worsened when Prigozhin declared he would soon pull his forces out of the city and accused Russian forces of attacking his soldiers with anti-tank mines. Despite such divisions in the Russian war effort Ukraine was unable to exploit them as Wagner forces finished the conquest of Bakhmut in late May 2023.
Illustrating how desperate the Putin regime needed a victory, Russia’s state-owned media compared the capture of Bakhmut to the Soviet conquest of Berlin that ended World War 2 in Europe. A more realistic comparison was made by retired U.S. Marine Colonel Andrew Milburn, who linked Bakhmut to Passchendaele, the ruined, strategically useless village liberated by Canadian forces in 1917. The two struggles saw harsh conditions, slow advances, and both sides committing evermore soldiers in what became pointless, symbolic battles. Russia’s victory would be short-lived as Ukraine launched strong assaults to retake parts of the city in its 2023 counteroffensive.
The Results
What did Russia gain from taking the shelled-out remains of a city with a prewar population of 80,000 that was reduced to less than 1000? On paper it advanced Russian forces closer to overrunning the Donbas but in reality they are currently stalled at Chasiv Yar, 6 miles west of Bakhmut. If Chasiv Yar falls Russia faces worse urban battles than Bakhmut in the larger cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, 30 miles west, to conquer Donetsk Oblast. Given it took Russian forces 450 days (since the war began) to advance 25 miles to take Bakhmut, it’s likely Putin won’t be taking the Donbas in the near future.
Russia’s casualties were also significantly higher than Ukraine’s losses. It’s unlikely Russian forces suffered 7 times more casualties than Ukrainian forces, as the latter’s government has suggested. However, credible sources suggest the ratio may be as high as 4-1 in Ukraine’s favor and Prigozhin claimed more than 20,000 Wagner soldiers died in the battle. Ironically, this supports American and British estimates that suggest total Wagner and Russian casualties were at least 60,000. Mimicking the Battle of the Somme that saw roughly 27 centimetres gained per allied casualty, the ISW noted Russia conquered “48 centimetres for each of the 60,000 personnel killed or wounded near Bakhmut since May 2022.”
Besides inflicting disproportionate losses Ukraine claimed its stubborn defense of Bakhmut pinned down Russian forces that could have launched attacks elsewhere, or reinforced the Zaporizhzhia front prior to Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. It also said the battle delayed Russia’s advance into Donetsk Oblast as only now Russian forces are attacking Chasiv Yar. Unfortunately, besides the last point it’s debatable if the casualty ratio really benefited Ukraine, or if Bakhmut effectively pinned down Russian forces.
While Russian casualties were much higher Russia has three times the population of Ukraine and up to 70% of its casualties in Bakhmut were ex-convicts of dubious military value. By contrast, as defense analyst Michael Kofman noted, Ukraine often deployed battle-hardened troops to the urban battle that could have launched offensives elsewhere during the 10 month battle.
Perhaps worse, the loss of so many experienced soldiers negatively influenced the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023. It’s been confirmed by many experts that Ukraine’s veteran forces with less modern equipment performed better during the offensive than newer trained forces equipped with superior western kit. The Ukrainians also arguably made a mistake making the Bakhmut region one of their main axes of advance during the counteroffensive. Recapturing territory around Bakhmut gave Ukraine little strategic benefit and attacking there weakened the impact of their assaults on the far more crucial Zaporizhzhia front.
Meanwhile, Russia did launch other, if mostly unsuccessful, offensives in Ukraine while the struggle at Bakhmut was ongoing, like at Kupiansk. Worst of all, as Wagner and Ukrainian forces battered each other at Bakhmut, the Russian Army built a sophisticated and effective defensive line on the Zaporizhzhia front to challenge Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. It’s fair to suggest this offensive faltered for many reasons, not least due to NATO sending Ukraine far too little weapons, far too late. But it’s clear Ukraine’s impressive kill ratio and stubborn defense at Bakhmut give it as much practical strategic benefits as Putin’s Pyrrhic victory there did for Russia.
Prigozhin’s Mutiny
As for Putin, taking Bakhmut gave him a symbolic victory to save face for Russian defeats in 2022 at Kiev, Kharkiv, and Kherson. However, the increased hostility between the Wagner Group and the Russian defense ministry during the battle produced shocking consequences during the summer of 2023. As the Russian Army held off Ukraine’s counteroffensive Prigozhin launched a rebellion against Putin’s regime when it tried integrating the Wagner Group into Russia’s military command structure to limit his influence.
On June 24, 2023 Wagner forces occupied Rostov-on-Don, a city with over 1,000,000 people and the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District, without firing a shot. Rather than condemn him many locals cheered Progozhin, who had become a popular figure in Russia since the fight for Bakhmut. Progozhin then led a Wagner convoy north towards Moscow, advancing 700 kilometres in one day (the longest Russian advance of the entire war, if in the wrong country). Besides a failed aerial assault to stop the column the Russian military stood aside while the convoy advanced to within 200 kilometres of Moscow. It was rumored Putin temporarily fled Moscow and for a few hours it looked like Prigozhin, a former cook, would overthrow the longest ruling leader of a major world power in modern history (Putin has ruled Russia since 1999).
But while Russia’s people and military didn’t come to Putin’s aid they didn’t back Progozhin either and a deal was brokered by the President of Belarus to end the rebellion. All charges against the Wagner Group were dropped and Progozhin was allowed to leave Russia. He was killed in an airplane crash two months later, likely arranged by the Kremlin. However, while Putin survived the showdown with the Wagner Group, the rebellion showed how brittle his regime really was.
Putin may have won a symbolic, if costly, victory at Bakhmut, and Ukraine may have conducted an impressive defense of the city that ultimately gave it little strategic benefit. But like the Siege of Mariupol and urban battles from Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Adiivka, and now Chasiv Yar, it would take Putin countless Bakhmuts to get to Kiev. It’s unlikely the increasingly waning Russian people, military, and economy will be able to stomach the time, money, and blood to fulfill Putin’s grandiose ambitions in Ukraine.
Perhaps one day the Battle of Bakhmut will be seen as the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65533192
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65670534
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-ukraine-wagner-bakhmut-1.6853725
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/key-moments-battle-bakhmut-ukraines-east-2023-05-20
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wagner-groups-rebellion-putin-unfolded/story?id=100373557