Russia-Ukraine war: What happens if Bakhmut falls

The situation in Bakhmut remains tense with the Wagner Group chief on Wednesday claiming to have taken ‘all the eastern parts’ and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warning that the fall of the city could Russian troops an ‘open road’ to other eastern Ukraine cities. Meanwhile, the NATO secretary general has admitted that the city could fall into Russian hands ‘in days.’ Let’s take a closer look at the situation in Bakhmut: What happened? Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of the Wagner Group military company that has spearheaded the Bakhmut offensive, on Wednesday claimed to have captured the eastern bank of the industrial town. CNN quoted Prigozhin as writing on Telegram, “The entire eastern part of Bakhmut is under the control of Wagner PMC. Everything to the east of the Bakhmutka River is under the complete control of Wagner PMC.” The outlet, which could not independently verify this claim, on Tuesday geolocated footage showing that Wagner mercenaries had planted their group flag on a monument in eastern Bakhmut. The monument is around 500 metres from the Bakhmutka river. The battle for Bakhmut, a salt-mining town with a pre-war population of 80,000, has been the longest and bloodiest in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has devastated swathes of the country and displaced millions over the past year.

According to BBC, 90 per cent of Bakhmut’s population has fled the fighting.

The city was previously known for its sparkling wine production in historic underground caves. Its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th Century buildings made it a popular tourist attraction. When a separatist rebellion engulfed the Donbas in April 2014, weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Russia-backed separatists won control of the city but lost it a few months later. Russian troops first attempted to recapture Bakhmut in early August but were pushed back. Pressure has been mounting on Ukrainian troops trying to hold the city against Russian soldiers hoping to capture it no matter the cost. Western officials claimed around 20,000 to 30,000 Russian troops had died in the siege of Bakhmut, as per BBC. The Bakhmut battle has exposed Russian military shortcomings and bitter divisions. Prigozhin has been at loggerheads with the Russian defence ministry and repeatedly accused it of failing to provide his forces with ammunition. On Monday, Prigozhin warned in a Russian social media post that the situation in Bakhmut “will turn out to be a ‘pie’: The filling is the parts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine surrounded by us (in the case, of course, if there is a complete encirclement of Bakhmut), and the shell is, in fact, the Wagner” Group. What is Zelensky saying? On Tuesday, Zelensky in an interview with CNN defended his decision to keep troops in Bakhmut. “This is tactical for us,” Zelensky said. “We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction.”

“That’s why our guys are standing there,” he added.

Zelensky made the remarks a day after vowing not to retreat from Bakhmut – a week after an adviser admitted the defenders might give up on Bakhmut and fall back to nearby positions. [caption id=“attachment_12199412” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to continue defending Bakhmut. AP[/caption] Zelenskyy on Monday chaired a meeting in which top military brass “spoke in favour of continuing the defense operation and further strengthening our positions in Bakhmut.” Later in his nightly video address, the president reported that his advisers unanimously agreed to press on with the fight, “not to retreat” and to bolster Ukrainian defences. His top adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, told The Associated Press that Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut have been grinding down enemy forces, reinforcing their positions and training tens of thousands of Ukrainian military personnel for a possible counteroffensive. Intense Russian shelling targeted the city in the Donetsk region and nearby villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to try to finish off Bakhmut’s resistance. The nearby towns of Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka came under heavy shelling, damaging cars and homes and sparking a fire. No casualties were immediately reported. Police and volunteers evacuated people from Chasiv Yar and other front-line towns in an operation made difficult by the loss of bridges and constant artillery fire that has left barely a house standing. What happens next? Analysts say the city does not hold major strategic value and that its capture would be unlikely to serve as a turning point in the conflict. The Russian push for Bakhmut reflects the Kremlin’s broader struggle to achieve battlefield momentum. Moscow’s full-scale invasion on 24 February, 2022, soon stalled, and Ukraine launched a largely successful counteroffensive. Over the bitterly cold winter months, the fighting has largely been deadlocked. The city’s importance has become mostly symbolic with the BBC quoting an unnamed Western official as saying the city afforded Kyiv a “a unique opportunity to kill a lot of Russians”.

Military experts note that Ukraine has turned Bakhmut into a meat grinder for Russia’s most capable forces.

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“It has achieved its aim as effectively being the anvil on which so many Russian lives have been broken,” Lord Richard Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff of the British armed forces, said on Sky News. Phillips P O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, said the battle for Bakhmut “confirms that the Russian army is still struggling with basic operations.” He noted that the Kremlin’s continuing emphasis on land grabs regardless of losses means that “Russian strategic aims are bleeding the Russian army greatly.” For Russian president Vladimir Putin, prevailing there would finally deliver some good news from the front. For Kyiv, the display of grit and defiance underscores the message that Ukraine is holding on after a year of brutal attacks, justifying continued support from its Western allies. Bakhmut has taken on almost mythic importance. [caption id=“attachment_12259052” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Ukrainian servicemen fire a 105mm howitzer toward Russian positions near the city of Bakhmut. AFP.[/caption] It has become like Mariupol — the port city in the same province that Russia captured last year after an 82-day siege that eventually came down to a mammoth steel mill where determined Ukrainian fighters held out along with civilians. Moscow looked to cement its rule in Mariupol. Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu toured some of the city’s rebuilt infrastructure — a newly built hospital, a rescue center and residential buildings — the Defense Ministry said. US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin endorsed that view Monday, saying during a visit to Jordan that Bakhmut has “more of a symbolic value than … strategic and operational value.” Moscow, he added, continues “to pour in a lot of ill-trained and ill-equipped troops” into Bakhmut, while Ukraine patiently builds “combat power” elsewhere with Western military support ahead of a possible spring offensive. Even so, some analysts question the wisdom of ordering Ukrainian defenders to hold out much longer. Others suggest that a tactical withdrawal may already be underway. Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the CAN think tank in Arlington, Virginia, said Ukraine’s defence of Bakhmut has been effective because it has drained the Russian war effort, but that Kyiv should now look ahead. “The tenacious defence of Bakhmut achieved a great deal, expending Russian manpower and ammunition,” Kofman tweeted late Sunday. “But strategies can reach points of diminishing returns, and given Ukraine is trying to husband resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a more important operation.” The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Kyiv’s smartest option now may be to withdraw to positions that are easier to defend. “Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare,” the ISW said in an assessment published late Sunday. The Ukrainian military has already strengthened defensive lines west of Bakhmut to block the Russian advance if Ukrainian troops finally retreat from the city. The nearby town of Chasiv Yar which sits on a hill just a few kilometers west could become the next bulwark against the Russians. Further west are Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the heavily fortified Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk. And even as the Russian military tries to pursue its offensive in Donetsk, it needs to keep large contingents in other sections of the Donbas and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region where Ukrainian forces are widely expected to launch their next counteroffensive. Meanwhile, in Stockholm, EU ministers were discussing plans to ramp up defence production and rush ammunition to Ukraine as it burns through thousands of howitzer shells each day. “What we see is that Russia is throwing more troops, more forces and what Russia lacks in quality they try to make up in quantity,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Stockholm on the sidelines of an EU defence ministers meeting. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.