Brian M Downing
The ground war has slowed significantly since the Ukrainian successes around Kharkiv and Kherson. Autumn brought rain and mud, winter snow and ice. Nonetheless, Russia has persisted in trying to take Bakhmut in the east. In recent days attacks have focused on Soledar, just to the north, in an effort to isolate Bakhmut.
Fighting, which has been going on since August, is localized but intense. Russian casualties are high. What are Moscow’s aims with Bakhmut and what are the likely consequences?
Why?
Russia believes its enemy is on the ropes. This is dubious at best, however Putin’s apparatchiks and officers are loath to send discouraging news, contradict him, or admit failure. The argument goes that last summer’s artillery barrages and ground assaults inflicted devastating losses and weakened morale. A few hammer blows will bring collapse and victory.
The battle for Bakhmut is indeed taking a toll on Ukrainians troops. Artillery barrages are endured and ground assaults repelled. Soldiers on the front are increasingly dazed and dispirited. Ukraine, however, is fighting a defense in depth. It can pull back to another line of fortifications and their pool of motivated, disciplined soldiers remains more reliable than Russia’s. There is no sign of breakdown.
Attacks are led by the Wagner Group, a private military organization with close ties to Putin. They prop up his allies in Libya, Syria, Sudan, and elsewhere and solidify Russian influence. The Group takes hold of economic assets to enrich itself – and probably Putin as well. Assaults around Bakhmut seek to strengthen Putin’s reliance, obtain more resources, and integrate the region’s assets into the Wagnerian empire.
The Bakhmut offensive seeks to spoil any Ukrainian offensive building to the west in Zaporozhzhia. That drive, suggested here last summer, would go south to the Black Sea and imperil the landbridge and Crimean peninsula. If those areas are lost, it would be a far more serious defeat than ones already suffered. Major military and commercial bases would be gone and communications with the Middle East and North Africa would be weakened.
A Russian breakthrough at Bakhmut would, at least in the thinking of Russia’s politicized and obeisant bureaus, retake the initiative lost in the summer when the Donbas offensive failed and the Ukrainians launched offensives around Kharkiv and Kherson.
There is pressure from army and state to do something. The war thus far has been a series of defeats and embarrassments. Pressure from above must be heavy, fear below must be intense.
Results
Russia is using massive artillery fire and repeated ground attacks as it did last summer on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Gains then were minimal, casualties high. The same holds today. Bakhmut is defended by experienced, motivated soldiers fighting from prepared positions with increasingly effective weaponry.
Russia is losing its best troops. The Wagner Group and airborne units (VDV) have shown effectiveness but are taking the brunt of the casualties. Repeated ground attacks are seeing to that. Casualties aren’t the only problem. The Wagner Group originally comprised trained, motivated Russians but now recruits hardened criminals at home and foreign fighters from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and the Ivory Coast. Its size and heterogeneity have grown tremendously. That entails promotion of unqualified officers and diminution of cohesion. Wagner’s effort to grab the ring may bring its Götterdämmerung.
Mobiks are also being expended. Their training and equipment is even poorer than regular forces, nonetheless they are ordered into assaults only weeks after induction. Results are predictable: high casualties and disciplinary troubles. Word has spread to the pool of young men facing an impending round of mobilization.
Russian units are being ground down in attacks of little strategic value that have gained only a few kilometers since autumn. Instead of preparing for a Ukrainian spring offensive, Moscow is squandering its best troops and demoralizing its worst ones. The winter has been hard on the Russian army. The spring may be worse as casualties rise and purges intensify.
©2023 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.