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Journalism of Courage
In scenes reminiscent of the First World War, Bakhmut, a small mining town in Eastern Ukraine, lies in flaming ruins, surrounded by hundreds of lines of defensive trenches. “If you don’t burrow in you die pretty quickly in war. You start with a small hole. Then you make another one next to it. You keep going,” Serhii Hnezdilov, a 22-year-old Ukrainian volunteer soldier, told The Guardian.
For months now, Russian infantry has been relentlessly attacking the town, unmindful of sky-high casualty rates, in a bid to make its first major gain in more than half a year, reported Reuters. While the western approach to the town still remains open despite constant artillery fire and aerial bombardment, the Russians have surrounded Bakhmut from three sides.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a video address late on Tuesday, said the battle for Bakhmut was “most difficult” but its defence was essential, reported Reuters.
Just how did Bakhmut find itself in the middle of some of the bloodiest fighting in the Ukraine-Russia War? Why does this tiny town of around 70,000 people (pre-war) mean so much to both sides? We explain.
Almost all invasions are planned as “quick wars” where the aggressor takes the initiative and blitzes to a position where it either obtains its strategic goals or forces its enemy to the negotiating table. For instance, Hitler’s Western campaign took just around six weeks before the Nazis wrested control over all of France and Western Europe (barring the Iberian countries).
But seldom do plans of “quick wars” pan out as expected. Faced with existential threats, defenders have historically put up great fights despite poor odds. Be it Stalin’s Finnish folly during World War II, the United States’ catastrophic involvement in Vietnam or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 – wars started with hopes of quick victory have a history of turning into attritional slogs carrying unjustifiable costs both men and money.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has suffered a similar fate over its first year. While the Russians made initial gains in the country, what was supposed to be a blitz turned into a bloody grind, with as many as 270,000 Russian soldiers killed and injured, as well-equipped and highly motivated Ukrainian defenders repelled the Russian advance.
It is in this context that the Battle of Bakhmut must be understood.
Unlike typically “important towns” during a military invasion, Bakhmut does not boast of either militarily important industry nor is it strategically located such that its capture is vital. At most, Bakhmut is proximate to multiple important roads which may have some strategic value to the Russian advance. But the same could be said about almost any town in the region. Why then has Bakhmut found itself at the heart of some of the War’s most deadly fighting?
Bakhmut’s significance is more symbolic, than anything else. For the Russians, bogged down in the kind of war they had no intention of fighting, Bakhmut is a testament to their resolve to continue the war efforts despite what some might call “unacceptable losses”.
Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at UC San Diego told The Hill that a victory at Bakhmut would be a tremendous “morale booster” for a military desperate for some wins.
“It’s an important transport hub, a lot of supply lines go through there and Russia could use it as a base,” Slantchev said. But in and of itself, its strategic value is limited. “A lot of people are criticising this pressure on Bakhmut and Soledar because even if they (the Russians) take them, if the Ukrainians achieve their goals in the north [Russia] can’t defend them,” Slantchev told The Hill.
For Ukrainians, Bakhmut would be easy to give up: its civilian population has long fled and what remains are charred ruins. But just as the Russians see Bakhmut as a symbol of their resolve, so do the Ukrainians, who are defensively well-positioned and proud of holding on to the land.
“We won’t give up Bakhmut. We will hold on to it until the very last,” a 25-year-old army medic headed towards the front told Reuters. “Glory to Ukraine, death to the enemies,” the young medic said. Given Russia’s steadfast intentions to capture Bakhmut, the town has become an arena where Ukrainian forces have inflicted astronomical casualties upon the enemy.
The Battle of Verdun in World War I has been described by historians as a meat-grinder: scores of young men succumbed to artillery and machine gun fire while trying to make negligible strategic gains. “The battle at Verdun can best be imagined as some monstrous ball game … the entry fee in this contest for a worthless piece of terrain was a great number of lives,” wrote Robin Neilland in Attrition: The Great War in the Western Front -1916. The Battle of Bakhmut has taken on a similar character.
Russia’s latest tactic is to overwhelm the Ukrainians with human waves, sent in without heavy armour, and likened by some to zombies, reported The Guardian.
The Bakhmut operations have been led by the Wagner Group, a shadowy private militia believed to be financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former sausage vendor and a key Putin ally. For Wagner, the campaign at Bakhmut has been of political significance – as a path to gain power and prominence in Moscow. Analysts have concluded that the Wagner assaults on Bakhmut were the company’s way of creating a narrative that it was the only Russian force still capable of beating the Ukrainians, reported Forbes.
This has meant that Wagner, staffed by prison convicts and veterans, has displayed disregard for life and limb unseen in modern war. Ukrainian volunteer Hnezdilov told The Guardian that the Russians were taking huge losses every day. “It’s a meat grinder. Bodies are left where they fall. Their own people get injured and cry out. Nobody helps them,” he said. Ukrainians, often heavily outnumbered, simply retreat when their lines seem to be overwhelmed, rearming and counter-attacking when the Russians are over-extended.
American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) “does not forecast the imminent fall of Bakhmut to Russian forces,” reported Forbes on February 24. While the Russian forces, now composed of both Wagner and general infantry troops, have made up the ground they still continue to take big casualties.
If the Russians do end up capturing Bakhmut, it could be because the Ukrainian general staff finally decided to trade the town for time. “The Ukrainian command may choose to withdraw rather than risk unacceptable losses,” ISW said, as reported by Forbes. While rhetorically Ukraine has continued to maintain that Bakhmut must be defended, surrounded by the enemy, Bakhmut’s strategic value may not justify the human costs for Ukraine.
The latest report from Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Russian forces had driven a wedge between two villages north of Bakhmut, Berkhivka and Yahidne, termed a “breakthrough on Bakhmut’s northern flank” that “poses a clear threat to us”, wrote Reuters, while adding that it could not verify this report.
Regardless of the battle’s outcome, Bakhmut remains a grim symbol for the war, where political ambitions, strategic interests and notions of honour have coalesced to see thousands killed, many more injured, the displacement of millions, and left much of Ukraine in a smouldering, often toxic, wreck.
