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Battle of Bakhmut

Coordinates: 48°35′42″N 38°00′00″E / 48.5950°N 38.0000°E / 48.5950; 38.0000
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For the 2014 battle in the city, see Battle of Artemivsk.

Battle of Bakhmut
Part of the Battle of Donbas in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Battle of Bakhmut
No man's land on the outskirts of Bakhmut
Date1 August 2022 – present
(2 years, 4 months and 2 days)
Location
Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine
48°35′42″N 38°00′00″E / 48.5950°N 38.0000°E / 48.5950; 38.0000
Status Ongoing
Belligerents

 Russia

 Ukraine
Commanders and leaders
Russia Yevgeny Prigozhin[1]
Russia Aleksey Nagin †[2]		 Ukraine Oleksandr Tarnavskiy[3]
Ukraine Yurii Bereza[4]
Ukraine Andriy Mikheichenko[5]
Units involved
File:Flag of the Wagner Group (variant).svg PMC Wagner[6]
 Russian Armed Forces
Donetsk People's Republic Donetsk People's Militia[7]		  Armed Forces of Ukraine
National Guard of Ukraine[8]
Ukrainian Foreign Legion[9]
Strength
Unknown 30,000[10]
Casualties and losses
Ukrainian claim:
~10,000–20,000+ killed in Bakhmut and Soledar[11]		 Unknown, presumed heavy[12]
142+ civilians killed
See Casualties for more details.

The Battle of Bakhmut is an ongoing series of military engagements in and near the city of Bakhmut between Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Russian Armed Forces during the larger battle for Donbas. Shelling of Bakhmut began in May 2022, but the main assault towards the city began on 1 August after Russian forces advanced from the Popasna direction after a Ukrainian withdrawal from that front.[13] The main assault force primarily consists of mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group, supported by regular Russian troops and DPR and LPR separatist elements.[7][14][6]

As of late 2022, following Ukraine's Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives, the Bakhmut-Soledar front became an important focus of the war, being one of the few front lines in Ukraine where Russia remained on the offensive.[15] Attacks on the city intensified in November 2022 as assaulting Russian forces were reinforced by units redeployed from the Kherson front, together with newly mobilized recruits.[16][17] By this time, much of the front line had descended into positional trench warfare, with both sides suffering high casualties without any significant advances.[18] The intensity of battles in the Bakhmut sector has been compared to World Wars I and II.[19][20]

Background

Main article: Battle of Donbas (2022–present)
Apartment bloc in Bakhmut after a Russian shelling. The city has been under shelling since May.[21]

Bakhmut, formerly known as Artemivsk, was the site of the 2014 battle of Artemivsk between Ukraine and the self-declared separatist Donetsk People's Republic. Pro-Russian separatists had captured parts of the city during the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine in April, and a Ukrainian special forces unit together with the National Guard were dispatched to expel the separatists from the city. The separatists were expelled to the city's outskirts where clashes continued until July 2014, when they finally retreated from the area.[22]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key Russian goal was to capture the Donbas region, consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The initial push for Bakhmut was part of an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian forces at the Sievierodonetsk-Lysychansk salient, together with another push from the Lyman direction, it would create a pocket and trap Ukrainian forces there.[23] Starting on 17 May, Russian forces began shelling Bakhmut, killing five people including a two-year-old child.[24][25] After the fall of Popasna on 22 May, Ukrainian forces withdrew away from the city to reinforce positions at Bakhmut.[13] Meanwhile, Russian forces managed to advance on the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway, endangering the remaining Ukrainian troops in the Lysychansk-Sievierodonetsk area.[26][27] The Russian checkpoint along the highway was later demolished, although fighting resumed on 30 May along the Kostiantynivka-Bakhmut highway, where Ukrainian forces successfully defended the highway.[28][29]

Shelling of Bakhmut continued throughout the rest of June and July, escalating after the battle of Siversk began on 3 July.[30] Following the battles of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in early July, Russian and separatist forces captured all of Luhansk oblast, and the battlefield shifted towards the cities of Bakhmut, and Soledar. On 25 July, Ukrainian forces withdrew from the Vuhlehirska Power Station, along with the nearby town of Novoluhanske, giving Russian and separatist forces a "small tactical advantage" towards Bakhmut.[31] Two days later on 27 July, Russian shelling of Bakhmut killed three civilians and wounded three more.[32]

Prior to the battle in Bakhmut, Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy claimed that Russia held a five-to-one manpower advantage over Ukraine along the eastern front.[33]

Battle

Early shelling and Russian encroachment (August–October 2022)

On 1 August, Russian forces launched massive ground attacks on settlements south and southeast of Bakhmut. Both the Russian Ministry of Defense and pro-Russian Telegram pages claimed that the battle of Bakhmut had begun.[34][35] The following day, Ukraine reported that Russian forces had increased airstrikes and shelling of Bakhmut, beginning a ground attack on the southeastern part of the city.[36] On 4 August, Wagner Group mercenaries managed to break through Ukrainian defenses and reach Patrice Lumumba street on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut.[37] In the following days, Russian forces continued to push towards Bakhmut from the south, with the Ukrainian general staff stating on 14 August that Russian forces had achieved "partial success" near Bakhmut, but offering no specifics.[38]

Night shelling in the city center on 21 September burned the Martynov Palace of Culture, where the humanitarian headquarters worked. During the extinguishing of the fire, the local fire department was shelled, which reported that two SES staff were injured and equipment damaged.[39] At night, a five-story building was partially destroyed by Russian shelling.[40][41] A Russian missile strike on 22 September destroyed the main bridge across the Bakhmutka river that bisects the city, disrupting both civilian travel and Ukrainian military logistics.[42]

On 7 October, Russian forces advanced into the villages of Zaitseve and Opytne on the southern and southeastern outskirts of Bakhmut, while on 10 October, the UK Defence Ministry claimed that Russian troops advanced closer to Bakhmut.[43][44] On 12 October, Russian forces claimed to have captured Opytne, located 3 km south of Bakhmut, and Ivanhrad, although these towns were still contested.[45] Ukrainian sources said a minor counteroffensive on 24 October pushed Russian forces from some factories on the eastern outskirts of the city, along Patrice Lumumba street.[46]

Winter escalation (November–December 2022)

File:Battle of Bakhmut 2.jpg
Ukrainian trench during the battle, November 2022
Ukrainian soldier in a trench near Bakhmut, November 2022

By early November, much of the fighting around Bakhmut had descended into trench warfare conditions, with neither side making any significant breakthroughs and hundreds of casualties reported daily amid fierce shelling and artillery duels.[47][18] On 1 November, Ukrainian journalist Yurii Butusov described the evolving nature of the battle in an interview. Butusov noted that Russian forces had suffered "huge losses every day" assaulting Bakhmut and its outskirts since early May, but insisted that they were adapting their tactics against increasingly exhausted Ukrainian defenders. He noted that the Russians were concentrating multiple small groups of infantry to break defense lines on "narrow" sections of the front.[48]

Russian forces breached defense lines along Bakhmut's southern flank, capturing the villages of Andriivka, Ozarianivka, and Zelenopillia, and making minor advances in Opytne through 28–29 November.[49][50] Wagner troops attacked Kurdyumivka, adjacent to Ozarianivka, with some Russian milbloggers claiming the settlement was captured.[51] Russian forces also attacked Ukrainian positions southeast of Bakhmut.[52][53] On 3 December, Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Eastern Command, described the Bakhmut front as "the most bloody, cruel and brutal sector ... in the Russian-Ukrainian war so far," adding that the Russians had conducted 261 artillery attacks in the past day alone.[54] The same day, a Georgia military volunteer told the media that a group of Georgian volunteers had been surrounded during clashes near Bakhmut. The commander was wounded and five or six volunteers, serving in Ukraine's 57th Brigade, had been killed, prompting Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili to express condolences.[55] On 6–7 December, the Russian defense ministry claimed that their forces, including Wagner fighters, had successfully repelled Ukrainian counterattacks south of Bakhmut.[56] The commander of the Ukraine National Guard's Svoboda Battalion, defending Bakhmut's southern flank, said they were "fighting for every bush" and predicted Russia would struggle to overcome a canal above and behind Kudriumivka.[57]

On 9 December, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of "destroying" Bakhmut, calling it "another Donbas city that the Russian army turned into burnt ruins." Former soldier and eyewitness to the battle Petro Stone called the Bakhmut front a "meat grinder," saying the Russians were "covering Bakhmut with fire 24/7".[58] Soldiers of Ukraine's 24th Mechanized Brigade recounted recent battlefield engagements to media, such as one multi-day firefight with 50 Russian troops dug into a treeline where in some places "we were only 100 metres apart." Ukrainian soldiers claimed that front line Russian troops often attacked with little tank support, with Wagner PMC fighters serving as the main assault troops and under-equipped mobiks (recently mobilized Russian recruits) holding defensive positions. One Ukrainian artillerymen alleged that "80 percent" of the remaining civilian population, surviving in basements and supplied by mobile grocery trucks that periodically enter the city, was pro-Russian.[59][60]

A 9K22 Tunguska of Ukraine's 30th Mechanized Brigade Anti-Air Battalion in the vicinity of Bakhmut

On 11–13 December, Russian sources claimed that Wagner fighters had breached defenses in east Bakhmut, occupying the northern section of Fyodor Maksimenko Street in Zabakhmutka district[57] and having advanced along Patrice Lumumba street in the industrial zone, fully capturing the Siniat ALC factory and sparkling wine/"artwinery" plant. On the outskirts, Wagner also purportedly stormed Pidhorodne, located on Bakhmut's northeastern flank, and made minor advances amid heavy fighting in Opytne, on the southern approach to Bakhmut.[61][62] The claims of Russian advances were not independently verified at the time, but the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed clashes in Bakhmutske, Soledar, and Pidhorodne, though it claimed it repelled all assaults. On 11 December a railway bridge over the E40 (M-03) highway north of Bakhmut was destroyed; the Russians accused the Ukrainians of demolishing it to hamper future Russian advances towards Sloviansk.[63][64][non-primary source needed][65]

Around the same time, rumours emerged that the 93rd Mechanized Brigade was going to be rotated out of Bakhmut due the high casualties. Ukrainian high command did not confirm nor deny the rumours but clarified that there were planned rotations, replacement and redeployment of units to other fronts.[66]

By 13 December, Russian sources claimed that proper urban street fighting had begun in the eastern and southeastern sectors of Bakhmut, particularly along Pershotravnevyy avenue up to Dobroliubova street in Zabakhmutka, while also claiming that 90% of Opytne had been captured amid fierce Ukrainian resistance. The Ukrainian General Staff said they successfully repelled assaults northeast and south of Bakhmut from the Soledar and Kurdiumivka directions, respectively.[67][68][non-primary source needed][69][70][71] On 17 December, footage emerged online of trenches in Bakhmut's city center, indicating Ukrainian defenders were preparing for urban combat.[72] On 18–19 December, Ukrainian forces, purportedly including dismounted infantry supported by British-donated Wolfhound Tactical Supply Vehicles, counterattacked along Fyodor Maksimenko Street and pushed Wagner forces back to the eastern outskirts of the suburban area amid "grinding" street clashes. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Joint Forces Task Force reported repelling "five to seven" Russian infiltration groups near Bakhmut daily.[73][74] A Ukrainian commander reported that an abundance of drone surveillance allowed for quick responses to small Russian assaults on the outskirts, while also alleging that Russia did not control Bakhmut's eastern industrial zone. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Western think tank and war observer, could not independently verify the claim of Ukraine entirely controlling the outskirts at the time.[75]

On 20–21 December, President Zelenskyy made an unannounced visit to the Bakhmut front, where he met with soldiers, awarded medals and delivered speeches.[76] Meanwhile, heavy shelling and fighting on Bakhmut's outskirts[75][77] continued as Russian forces continuously attempted to break entrenched Ukrainian positions on the city's flanks. Reportedly, Wagner fighters were assaulting strongholds in Bakhmutske, Pidhorodne, and Klishciivka, located along Bakhmut's northeastern and southwestern flanks respectively, while the Ukrainians continued to hold northern Opytne, blunting Russia's advance from the south.[78] On 26 December, Ukraine's governor of Donetsk Pavlo Kyrylenko said over 60 percent of Bakhmut's infrastructure was damaged or destroyed.[79] The ISW judged that Russia's advance on Bakhmut had "culminated" by 28 December, assessing that Russian and Wagner forces had grown increasingly unable to sustain the previous scale of infantry assaults and artillery barrages.[80] By early January 2023, the pace of fighting and rate of artillery fire in the Bakhmut sector had significantly decreased, and the Kyiv Independent remarked that the battle was "near culmination".[81]

Continued encirclement efforts (January 2023–present)

Following a local offensive in early January 2023, Russian forces captured the nearby town of Soledar, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Bakhmut, by 16 January 2023. The capture of Soledar would allow Russian forces to advance on Bakhmut from the north,[82] although the ISW assessed Russian forces would need to take control of the T0513 Siversk-Bakhmut highway, located 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of Russia's positions near Soledar, to cut Ukraine's supply lines to Bakhmut.[83]

By 20 January 2023, both the Russian defence ministry and Wagner forces claimed to have captured Klishchiivka, a village located 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) southwest of Bakhmut, although Reuters could not independently verify the claims at the time.[84][85][86]

Casualties

Due to the fog of war and deliberately unpublished casualty figures from both sides, the true number of military and civilian casualties due to the battle is unknown, although casualties are presumed to be heavy. Media outlets estimated hundreds of civilians and military from both sides killed and wounded each day amid battlefield conditions reminiscent of the First and Second World Wars.[87]

Military casualties

On 10 November, the Ukrainians claimed that the Wagner Group had suffered nearly 140 casualties in the last 24 hours, including over 40 men killed, in fighting near Bakhmut.[88] In early December the Ukrainian government estimated that 50-100 Russian soldiers were killed in the Bakhmut sector each day.[89] Some Ukrainian commanders estimated that Russia suffered 100-300 casualties in Bakhmut alone on some days.[90] On 22 December, John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said that United States intelligence had indicated that about 1,000 Wagner fighters had been killed near Bakhmut in recent weeks.[91] On 25 December, the Ukrainian military claimed Russia had lost 140 killed and 180 wounded on the Bakhmut front in the previous two days.[92][93] By early January 2023, a soldier of the Ukrainian National Guard claimed in an interview to UNIAN that Wagner suffered an almost 80% casualty rate in attacks as the wounded are not rescued and are left to die.[94]

On 27 November, The New York Times reported a high level of casualties for both armies, also placing the number of Ukrainian wounded at 290 in the previous 36 hours.[95] Ukrainska Pravda reported how only 7 out of 93 Ukrainian soldiers in one company remained combat-effective after two weeks, with most casualties suffering from moderate-to-severe shell shock and shrapnel wounds.[57] On 24 December, a Spanish media source reported that the Ukrainian military was suffering up to 400 casualties in the area around Bakhmut daily.[96] On 27 December, Vice Media reported that one field clinic in Bakhmut treated 50-100 wounded soldiers each day.[97] On 29 December, Arestovych said Ukraine was suffering "serious losses" along the Soledar-Bakhmut front, but claimed Russia was suffering even higher casualties.[98][99]

On 20 December, the German Federal Intelligence Service stated that Ukraine was losing a three-digit number of soldiers around Bakhmut each day.[100] According to the Kyiv Independent, it was unclear how the losses were counted and if they include those wounded and captured.[101]

Civilian casualties

By 5 November, the deputy mayor of Bakhmut claimed that over 120 civilians had been killed in the city proper.[102] By early December, only between 7,000 and 15,000 of Bakhmut's prewar population of 80,000 remained in the city.[103][104] On 16 December, three civilians were wounded by shelling.[105] By 13 January 2023, shelling in Bakhmut had killed at least an additional 22 civilians and wounded 72 since early December.[106]

Analysis

Battlefield conditions

Ukrainian soldier standing on guard in the vicinity of Bakhmut

The battle of Bakhmut has been described as one of the bloodiest battles of the 21st century, with the battlefield being described as a "meat grinder" and a "vortex" for both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries.[107][108] With extremely high casualties, costly ground assaults with very little ground gained, and shell-pocked landscapes, volunteers, media, and government officials alike compared fighting in Bakhmut to battlefield conditions on the western front of World War I.[109][110] Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Andrew Milburn, the leader of a foreign volunteer group in Ukraine called the Mozart Group and an eyewitness to the battle, compared conditions in the Bakhmut countryside to Passchendaele and the city itself to Dresden in World War II.[111] On 11 January 2023, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described the fighting ongoing at Bakhmut and Soledar as the bloodiest since the start of the invasion.[112]

Personnel and tactics

Russian assault forces have primarily composed of Wagner Group mercenary contractors and ex-convicts, reinforcements from other front lines in Ukraine, and newly mobilized recruits the Ukrainians refer to as mobiks.[60] Some observers likened Russian tactics to Soviet-style human wave attacks, repeatedly assaulting Ukrainian positions with waves of infantry.[60][113] Reportedly, Wagner's forces composed of a majority of recruited, under-trained ex-convicts and a minority of well-trained contractors serving as group commanders that operate efficiently and encrypt radio communications.[57] Some Ukrainian soldiers alleged that Wagner used its recruited ex-convicts as first wave "human bait" to reveal Ukrainian positions, with those refusing to advance being threatened with "execution" by firing squads or barrier troops[114][115][113] and those who were wounded in the assaults were usually not rescued.[116] Russia has also targeted Bakhmut with Iranian made drones after 450 of them were sent to Russia in mid-October 2022.[117]

The Ukrainian defenders consist of a "hodgepodge of units", consisting initially of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade and the 58th Motorized Brigade, who were later reinforced by many other units—including special forces and territorial defense units—in order to fill in gaps caused by heavy casualties.[107][17][47] Units are also constantly rotated to replenish casualties and prevent combat fatigue.[66] On 10 January 2023, Polish think tank Rochan Consulting estimated Ukraine may have ten brigades fighting in Bakhmut, or around 30,000 personnel.[118]

Strategic value

The overall strategic value of Bakhmut has been considered dubious by many analysts, observing that the resources and lives Russia has spent assaulting the city far outweigh its importance.[119] The UK defence ministry and U.S. National Security Council have both insisted capturing Bakhmut would only be a "symbolic" victory for Russia rather than a strategic one.[120][121] Some observers noted that Bakhmut is a key regional logistics and transport hub where two roads, the T0504 to Kostiantynivka and T0513 to Siversk, pass through.[57][122] Jon Roozenbeek, British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, observed that securing Bakhmut would put Kramatorsk and Sloviansk within sufficient Russian artillery range.[123] Konrad Muzyka, and expert on Russian security Mark Galeotti, argued that Russia's costly assault is a matter of both preserving prestige and sunk cost fallacy—that Russian forces had already expended so much manpower in the war effort on other fronts that it "may as well do everything they can" to seize the city.[119]

Retired Ukrainian colonel Serhiy Hrabskyi suggested Wagner Group was seeking glory in capturing Bakhmut, as leader Yevgeny Prigozhin is poised to reap significant monetary and political rewards if Wagner captures the city on behalf of the Russian government.[15] Prighozhin himself had previously suggested Wagner was deliberately turning Bakhmut into a "meat grinder" to inflict heavy attritional casualties on Ukrainian forces.[124]

See also

References

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