Russia-Ukraine War | With no time to celebrate, Russia looks past Bakhmut

2023-05-26 18:09:27

After nine long monthsthe official Russian press has had a victory to present this week: the conquest of the city of Artiomovsk -that’s how it’s known Bajmut in Russia – in Donbas. It was one of the news items that opened the news and newspapers, something that had been expected for a long time in the Kremlin, taking into account that the offensive in this small town (in times of peace about 77,000 people lived in it) in eastern Ukraine began on past August 1. But as the military expert Vassili Dandikin points out in the half Russian IzvestiaIt was a “moral victory” against the propaganda myth of the “Bajmut fortress”.

According to this analyst, Russia emerges stronger from these nine months of intense fighting, in which the town was devastated, although he points out that what is important is that the Army fortify that position y solve the problem “with Adviika and Marinka so that there are no artillery shelling in Donetsk and other big cities.” Major cities like Mariupol –conquered after almost three months– or Kherson –taken in just six days, although kyiv recovered it– took less time to be occupied by the Russian armed forces. For both sides, this fight for Bakhmut has been an important military drain. Dandikin notes that in one day “100 Ukrainian soldiers and mercenaries, one tank, one infantry fighting vehicle, five pickup trucks, one Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery mount and one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mount were destroyed.”

For the Russians, victory was not without cost either. French military analyst Denis Kolesnyk points out to EL PERIÓDICO that “the Russians have left their offensive power totally exhausted and it is highly unlikely that they will seek to attack the area in the nearest future.” He details that for them the key thing was “to have a foothold” in the city.

a pyrrhic victory

The Battle of Bakhmut has been one of the most prominent in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. This city “has achieved a kind of symbolic meaning both for the Ukrainians and for the Russians,” notes Kolesnyk. “For Moscow, you had to take the city anyway, to get at least one small victory on the Ukrainians, although the importance of the town and what remains of it is negligible” he adds. In the Russian media the importance of this capture has been amplified, as Dadykin does in ‘Izvestia’, where he says that “now this transport artery –Bajmut– has been completely cut, which will make it difficult to transfer troops, the delivery of ammunition and other material goods.” “Even for this reason, the enemy clung to Artiomovsk with his teeth,” he remarks. Kolesnyk for his part believes that the Bakhmut’s position was key “At the beginning of the invasion, it was important for the Ukrainian Army to hold the city by the defensive advantages it offers, something that also made it possible to prepare the closest settlements”.

To this day both kyiv and Moscow still swing your swords And they don’t seem ready to capitulate. Practically the same day that Moscow celebrated its triumph, he saw how in his own territory, the internationally recognized one, a few towns were occupied in the belgorod region, on the very Ukrainian border. In addition, who took this territory were neither more nor less than Russian volunteers who fight alongside kyiv, something more than symbolic. The French adviser affirms that after the celebration for the capture of Bakhmut, “the ukrainian raid“It has spoiled the party for the Russian Army, which has seen that it must deploy troops within its own territory.

This has been reflected in another publication of the Russian establishment, ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’, the journalist Aleksánder Grishin. He signs an article entitled “Why Ukraine sent its terrorists to the Belgorod region: Zelensky’s inhumane plan”, in which he points out the alleged lack of discipline of these militiamen and that they are being “eliminated” by the Russian Army. The same author stated in another article that the reason for this attack is due to the Ukrainian need “to somehow compensate the bitterness of defeat“.

To this day, “the end of the war is not around the corner“, says the French analyst Kolesnyk. He believes that it is impossible for Moscow to reach an agreement that can be “sold as a victory” and end its offensive in Ukraine, only when “the elites understand that the war is lost and that they should abandon it” it will be possible to sign peace.