2023-05-22 19:45:00
WAR – After several months of intense and destructive fighting, the town of Bakhmout fell under the control of Russian forces. On Saturday May 20, Yevgeny Prigojine, leader of the paramilitary group Wagner, took credit for the victory in a video disseminated on social networks. “There was only Wagner here”, he proclaimed in front of several mercenaries, in order to insist on the decisive nature, in his eyes, of his intervention “for 224 days”.
In fact, since October 2022, its troops have been fighting on the front line in the region. Accustomed to communicating in an outrageous way, Prigojine has regularly been acerbic towards the Russian General Staff. He notably reproaches the latter for not having delivered enough ammunition to his troops or for having made the battalions of the regular army hold positions that were too defensive, set back from the most exposed front lines.
If the leader of Wagner went so far as to take Putin himself to task, although in half-words and without naming him (he would have compared him to “an idiot of a grandfather”), his remarks up to Endians are however systematically staged, in a homogeneous style, which makes plausible the hypothesis of a calculated propaganda.
The host of the Kremlin did not fail, in any case, to jointly congratulate, in a press release, Wagner and the Russian army for “the liberation of Artiomosvk” (Soviet name of Bakhmout). Vladimir Putin highlighted “the support of artillery and aviation” to present the success of the operation.
The satisfaction had already partially taken place. From the end of March, Evgueni Prigojine had mentioned a “70%” capture of the city, and claimed as of April 3 the capture of the town hall. The Russian military authority was more discreet about the progress of the operations, which obviously annoyed a Prigojine always vehement and in a hurry to complete the conquest of Bakhmout.
Wagner’s forces announced yesterday that they are clearing the area and plan to leave the area before June 1, to hand over to the regular Russian army. Will his units be present in sufficient numbers?
This is the umpteenth polemic developed by Yevgueni Prigojine, who has already warned that in the event of a lack of “Ministry of Defense units”, “thousands of generals” would be ready to take “ guns, and everything will be fine”. In other words, to create militias within the local population. The Russian military command will appreciate.
For their part, the Ukrainian forces refuse to concede the loss of Bakhmout. If the situation is “critical” according to Hanna Maliar, Deputy Defense Minister, units under the orders of kyiv would still be committed to the west of the city.
The commander of the ground forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, even admitted that the presence of his troops was “insignificant”. The latter however announced, according to the New York Times, that his forces were “advancing on the flanks” of the city, bordered by a few hills. With the plan to surround and “destroy the enemy who must now defend” the city, added the Deputy Minister of Defense on Telegram.
These positions taken by Ukrainian leaders and officials raise questions. Basically, what is the real importance of this “battle of Bakhmout”, on one side or the other? On the Western side, it has not always been presented as decisive, despite the fact that Ukrainian officials, including Volodymyr Zelensky, have tried to mobilize international opinion around its pivotal role.
During from an interview with the American channel CNNon March 7, the Ukrainian president affirmed that the loss of Bakhmout would offer the Russians “an open road” to take the other important cities of eastern Ukraine, justifying at the same time the “tactical” maintenance of his military forces against the Russians.
“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be an open route for the Russians after Bakhmut to other cities in Ukraine, in the direction of Donetsk,” he warned.
According to him, Ukraine would use Bakhmout as a “fixing point”, against which Russia would lose many forces during deadly battles around a field of ruin.
Be that as it may, the announced remobilization of Ukrainian forces around Bakhmout finds echoes in the media: the thesis of a counter-offensive has for example been featured on the LCI channelon May 11, by journalist David Pujadas, accompanied by military strategy expert Pierre Servent, in the program “Bakhmout: the incredible Ukrainian counter-attack”.
A counter-offensive which would have succeeded “a gradual and organized withdrawal” of Ukrainian forces in exchange for “Russian positions”, according to another information from the Washington Post and taken up with caution by Pierre Servent.
A necessary caution, given the latest developments on the battlefield. Apart from to the west of the ruined city, the deployment of Ukrainian military forces is not confirmed and the destruction of two bridges in March on the outskirts of Bakhmout seems to have weighed on the supplies necessary to carry out such companies.
A finding that contrasts with the broadcast of images on LCI showing Russian soldiers in rout, ten days ago. Present on the set, the journalist Elena Volochine, senior reporter for France 24 and former correspondent in Moscow, did not fail to specify the “military” source of these images and “returning to the question of methodology” when it comes to media coverage of a war.
“We must not forget that we are in a propaganda war. (…) These are not images of independent journalists”, she recalled. “We cannot form an opinion based on these images (…) which we cannot verify”, specifying that this kind of images are found on both sides of the conflict.
The presenter David Pujadas seemed to agree with this observation, while justifying the dissemination of the images in question: “Over time, we realize if we have been bloused or not. And it’s true that with these images (…), as the war progresses, we realize that some sources are more or less reliable, sometimes others are completely rubbish.”. From now on, the thesis of a Ukrainian counter-attack in preparation in this zone seems to be moving away. Unless there’s a twist?
Will the Ukrainian army be able to respond to Russian numerical superiority? This will depend, in the coming weeks, on the deliveries of F-16 planes mentioned by the Western camp, the preservation of “elite troops” around the hot spots in the suburbs of Bakhmout, or even the success of Zelensky’s last appeals. , at the G7, to new arms deliveries.
The pro-Russians have never made a secret of the importance of the “battle of Donbass” which will be, according to Boris Rojine, a pro-Russian military expert, “without any doubt the decisive battle of this campaign”.
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