“I just hope that the army command really, really, really knows what they are doing in Bachmoet”

The troops of the Russian mercenary army Wagner try to break through to the center of the city of Bachmut. That has the Ukrainian commander of the ground forces Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky reported. The east and southeast of the city, which has been fighting fiercely for months, are now in the hands of the Russians.

According to Russian military bloggers, heavy firefights are taking place in the streets, in the war-torn buildings and even underground in the mines. In the north of the center says Wagner a breakthrough and to have captured the large metal factory AZOM.

If that message is correct, it is already a small symbolic victory for the Wagner group: the AZOM factory was the place where President Volodymyr Zelensky late December paid another visit to the front city and presented awards to the men who defended Bachmoet. The city, which had 70,000 inhabitants before the war, has now been virtually abandoned by civilians and heavily damaged in the fighting.

Exit strategy

Although the Russian troops have not yet succeeded in encircling the city completely, the Ukrainian forces are also under considerable pressure in the southwest and northwest of Bachmut. Russian troops have advanced about 2,000 feet this week to the only major road leading west from Bachmut, according to Ukrainian front analysis sites Deepstate and LiveUAMap. If these reports are correct, the options for a Ukrainian exit strategy are becoming increasingly limited.

Meanwhile, Ukraine (like Russia in all likelihood) is also facing ammunition shortages. “Then you are in the front line, they come at you, and there is nothing to shoot with,” says a colonel codenamed Koepol. openly against The Washington Post.

NATO last week estimated that for every Ukrainian soldier killed around Bachmut, Russia lost five

The developments lead to doubts within Ukraine and internationally about the Ukrainian choice to continue to defend Bachmut. Ukraine is suffering enormous losses. Daily reports are made about the loss of experienced soldiers, while they are very valuable for the much-discussed and long-awaited counter-offensive.

Also view this photo series: Battle around trenches in Bachmoet is reminiscent of Verdun in World War I

For example, company commander of the 93rd brigade, Oleksandr Basaliga, who had been fighting for Ukraine since 2014, was killed this week at Bachmoet. Last Friday in Kyiv was the massively attended funeral of the Ukrainian hero Dmytro Kochubaylo (27), where even Defense Minister Oleksij Reznikov paid tribute. “The hordes of [de Russische president Vladimir] Putin are taking our most beautiful sons and daughters,” a priest said at Kochubaylo’s memorial service at St. Michael’s Monastery.

‘Anvil’

Based on European and American sources estimate The Washington Post that 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been wounded or killed since the beginning of the invasion. The losses of the Russians would be about twice as high. But the population of Russia is more than three times as large, so the country also has larger reserves.

The losses fuel conversation among Ukrainians about Ukrainian strategy in the area, and the choice to continue defending the city. “I just hope the Ukrainian army command really, really, really knows what they are doing in Bachmut,” wrote Ukrainian defense journalist Ilya Ponomarenko on Twitter.

Earlier, the Ukrainian administrators defended holding on to Bachmut because the siege of the city offers the opportunity to eliminate Wagner’s elite groups. NATO estimated last week that for every Ukrainian soldier killed around Bachmut, Russia itself lost five. This turned Bachmut into an ‘anvil’ to smash the Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries.

Analysts from the American Institute for the Study of War even observe that it may be part of a Russian strategy to have the strongest Wagner groups – actually illegal under Russian law – eliminated by Ukraine, thus tempering the political aspirations of founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Many civilians

President Zelensky previously pointed out that the battle is not over when Bachmut falls, but that the focus of the war will shift to an unknown place, creating a new danger. A fall of Bachmut may also bring a siege of the cities of Slovjansk and Kramatorsk closer – in contrast to the abandoned front city, many civilians still live there.

“The defense of the fortress continues!” wrote Ukrainian Colonel General Syrsky. Incidentally, Bachmut is far from the only place where Russia is trying to break up Ukraine. Things are also going fast further in the Donbas, at the places of Bilohorivka and Marjinka, Avdiivka, Voehledar and Kamjanka. “It is now being decided what our future will be. Where our future, of all Ukrainians, is being fought for,” President Zelensky said Monday evening.