Battle for Bakhmut Destroys Ukrainian City

The nine-month battle for Bakhmut has destroyed the 400-year-old city in eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people in a mutually devastating demonstration of Ukraine's strategy of exhausting the Russian military.

The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground on Sunday in the invasion’s longest battle.

Russia’s defense ministry reported that the Wagner private army, backed by Russian troops, had seized the city.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Bakhmut was not being occupied by Russian forces.

Regardless, the small city has been more symbolic than strategic value for both sides.

The more meaningful gauge of success for Ukrainian forces has been their ability to keep the Russians bogged down.

The Ukrainian military has aimed to deplete the resources and morale of Russian troops in the tiny but tactical patch of the 1,500 kilometer (932 mile) front line as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive in the 15-month-old war.

“You know, by fighting right through the center of the city, road by road, street by street, building by building, (the Russians) really just wanted to take this city, and so they fought their way through," said Phillips O’Brien, a Professor of Strategic Studies at St. Andrews University.

"But for whatever reason, whether the troops, they're just now exhausted or whether they've lost so many troops, they can't seem to hold either side, the Ukrainians have discovered that the sides of Bakhmut are much weaker for the Russians and they're beginning to push them back,” he added.

About 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, Bakhmut was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines, with about 80,000 people before the war, in a country of more than 43 million.

The city, named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, was known for its sparkling wine produced in underground caves.

It was popular among tourists for its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th century mansions are all now reduced to a smoldering wasteland.

Fought over by Russia and Ukraine in recent months has been the urban area itself, where up until this week Ukrainian commanders conceded Moscow controlled more than 90%.

But even now, Ukrainian forces are making significant advances near strategic roads through the countryside just outside, chipping away at Russia’s northern and southern flanks by the meter (yard) with the aim of encircling Wagner fighters.

Ukrainian forces have paid a high cost for their defense of the city of Bakhmut.

But military leaders say their gritty, months-long resistance there has been worth it, because it limited Russia’s capabilities elsewhere and allowed for Ukrainian advances.

Russia has reportedly deployed reinforcements to Bakhmut, to replenish lost northern and southern flanks and prevent more Ukrainian breakthroughs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin badly needs to claim victory in the entire Bakhmut city, analysts say, especially after a winter offensive by his forces failed to capture other cities and towns along the front.

Some analysts say that even Ukraine’s tactical gains in the rural area outside urban Bakhmut could be more significant than they seem.

“It was almost like the Ukrainians just took advantage of the fact that, actually, the Russian lines were weak,” said O’Brien.

“But I think it’s a sign that the Russian army has suffered such high losses and is so worn out around Bakhmut that it’s going nowhere forward, that it cannot go forward anymore. You know, taking Bakhmut was basically all it could do," he added.

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