KYIV, Ukraine, 6 Mar: Ukrainian military leaders are determined to hold onto Bakhmut, Kyiv officials said Monday, even as Russian forces continued to encroach on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city that they have sought to capture for six months at the cost of thousands of lives.
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s office said he chaired a meeting with military officials during which the country\u2019s top brass advocated strengthening Ukrainian positions there.
\nIntense Russian shelling targeted the Donetsk region city and nearby villages as Moscow deployed more resources there in an apparent bid to finish off Bakhmut\u2019s resistance, according to local officials.
\n\u201cCivilians are fleeing the region to escape Russian shelling continuing round the clock as additional Russian troops and weapons are being deployed there,\u201d Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
\nRussian forces that invaded Ukraine just over a year ago have been bearing down on Bakhmut for months, putting Kyiv\u2019s troops on the defensive but unable to deliver a knockout blow.
\nMore broadly, Russia continues to experience difficulty generating battlefield momentum. Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, soon stalled and then was pushed back by a Ukraine counteroffensive. Over the bitterly cold winter months, the fighting has largely been deadlocked.
\nBakhmut doesn\u2019t have any major strategic value, and analysts say its possible fall is unlikely to bring a turning point in the conflict.
\nIts importance has become psychological \u2014 for Russian President Vladimir Putin, prevailing there will finally deliver some good news from the battlefield, while for Kyiv the display of grit and defiance reinforces a message that Ukraine was holding on after a year of brutal attacks to cement support among its Western allies.
\nU.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin endorsed that view Monday, saying during a visit to Jordan that Bakhmut has \u201cmore of a symbolic value than \u2026 strategic and operational value.\u201d
\nHe added that Moscow is \u201ccontinuing to pour in a lot of ill-trained and ill-equipped troops\u201d in Bakhmut, whereas Ukraine is patiently \u201cbuilding combat power\u201d elsewhere with Western military support ahead of the launch of a possible spring offensive.
\nEven so, some analysts questioned the wisdom of the Ukrainian defenders holding out much longer, with others suggesting a tactical withdrawal may already be underway.
\nMichael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the CAN think tank in Arlington, Virginia, said that Ukraine\u2019s defense of Bakhmut has been effective because it has drained the Russian war effort, but that Kyiv should now look ahead.
\n\u201cI think the tenacious defense of Bakhmut achieved a great deal, expending Russian manpower and ammunition,\u201d Kofman tweeted late Sunday. \u201cBut 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.\u201d
\nUkrainian officials have previously raised the possibility of a tactical retreat.
\nThe Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, noted that urban warfare favors the defender but considered that the smartest option now for Kyiv may be to withdraw to positions that are easier to defend.
\nIn recent days, Ukrainian units destroyed two key bridges just outside Bakhmut, including one linking it to the nearby hilltop town of Chasiv Yar along the last remaining Ukrainian resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts. Demolishing the bridges could be part of efforts to slow down the Russian offensive if Ukrainian forces start pulling back from the city.
\n\u201cUkrainian 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,\u201d the ISW said in an assessment published late Sunday.
\nThe Bakhmut battle has also served to expose Russian military shortcomings and bitter divisions.
\nYevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of the Wagner Group military company that spearheaded the Bakhmut offensive, has been at loggerheads with the Russian Defense Ministry and repeatedly accused it of failing to provide his forces with ammunition. On Sunday, he again criticized top military brass for moving slowly to deliver the promised ammunition, questioning whether the delay was caused \u201cby red tape or treason.\u201d
\nPutin\u2019s stated ambition is to seize full control of the four provinces, including Donetsk, that Moscow illegally annexed last fall. AP<\/p>\n
Russia controls about half of Donetsk province, and to take the remaining half of that province its forces must go through Bakhmut.
\nThe city is the only approach to bigger Ukrainian-held cities since Ukrainian troops took back Izium in Kharkiv province during a counteroffensive last September.
\nBut taking at least six months to conquer Bakhmut, which had a prewar population of 80,000 and was once a popular vacation destination, speaks poorly of the Russian military\u2019s offensive capabilities and may not bode well for the rest of its campaign.
\n\u201cRussian forces currently do not have the manpower and equipment necessary to sustain offensive operations at scale for a renewed offensive toward (the nearby cities of) Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, let alone for a years-long campaign to capture all of Donetsk Oblast,\u201d the ISW said.
\nBakhmut has taken on almost mythic importance to its defenders. It has become like Mariupol \u2014 the port city in the same province that Russia captured after an 82-day siege that eventually came down to a mammoth steel mill where determined Ukrainian fighters held out along with civilians.
\nMoscow looked to cement its rule in the areas it has occupied and annexed. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Mariupol and toured some of the city\u2019s rebuilt infrastructure, the Defense Ministry reported Monday.
\nShoigu was shown a newly built hospital, a rescue center of the Emergency Ministry and residential buildings, the ministry said. AP<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, Ukraine, 6 Mar: Ukrainian military leaders are determined to hold onto Bakhmut, Kyiv officials said Monday, even as Russian forces continued to encroach on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city that they have sought to capture for six months at the cost of thousands of lives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s office said he chaired a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-212317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}