Russian "Cannon Fodder" Prison Recruits

"[Russia is suffering much heavier casualties than Ukraine in its attempts to capture] Fortress Bakhmut."

"We are destroying the occupier everywhere -- wherever it yields results for Ukraine." 

"Bakhmut has yielded and is yielding one of the greatest results during this war."

"In less than a week, starting from the 6th March, we managed to kill more than 1,100 enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, Russia's irreversible loss, right there, near Bakhmut," 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"I think the main question is to what extent does defence of Bakhmut represent a strategy with diminishing returns relative to other options."

Michael Kofman, director, Russia studies program, CNA think-tank

"[Ukraine is better positioned to exploit the situation by reducing the size of Wagner's forces from an estimated] 45,000 to 7,000 [fighters]."

"Defending from a fortress is the more effective way to hold the line before launching your own counteroffensive"

Yuriy Lutsenko, captain, Ukrainian drone unit

 

"It is] quite difficult to conclude confidently whether attrition of Russian troops is better done using the current approach or might have been better had we left Bakhmut and shortened the front line."

Mykola Bielieskov, analyst, Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies

Ukrainian service members fire a howitzer M119 at a front line, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine March 10, 2023. REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak/File Photo

 

"[The situation in Bakhmut is] tough, very tough".

"The closer we are to the centre of the city, the harder the fighting ... The Ukrainians throw in endless reserves. But we are advancing and we will be advancing"

"Yesterday, we got 15 truckloads [of ammunition from the military], today we got 12. And I think we will continue to receive them."

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin 

Ukrainian servicemen travel towards Bakhmut on Saturday   AFP via Getty Images

The nine-month battle for Bakhmut has become a vicious conflict of attrition, each side focusing on significantly diminishing the number of the other's troops to strangle morale and gain the upper hand in the final, definitive conflict over possession of a city that has been utterly destroyed. Its capture by Russia would signify a rare 'victory', one that would complete its annexation of the Donetsk. 

 

Successfully defeating the Russian intention and retaining Bakhmut represents a signal victory for Ukraine in its epic struggle to save itself from complete Russian domination.

Thousands of Russian fighters -- most of them mercenaries that the Wagner group recruited from prisons, ordering them to assault Ukrainian positions in waves of human decoys whose lives are expendable in the greater drive to complete a mission where the defenders are motivated by love of country and an existential imperative, as opposed to an invading army following orders to prosecute a war with a lacklustre performance by ill-trained and poorly armed combatants -- have perished ingloriously.

 

Russians closed in on Bakhmut from the north, the south and the east. A narrow supply route was left from the west. "The enemy is attacking from all sides. We are getting supplies, but the situation is with each day getting more and more difficult", recounted a Ukrainian soldier. President Zelensky had a change of mind, ordering his forces to reinforce positions in Bakhmut, warning that to abandon the city would grant Russia an "open road" to the rest of Donetsk province.

 

Last summer's successful tactics deployed during Russia's assault on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the last two sizable towns under Kyiv's control in Luhansk province, was being repeated in Bakhmut. Where the Ukrainian army last year inflicted heavy losses on Russian troops and militias drawn from occupied territories before eventually withdrawing.

 

Kyiv then launched a lightning offensive retaking territory in northeastern Ukraine and liberating the city of Kherson in the south, taking advantage of Russia's depleted, overstretched forces. Whether Ukrainian losses in men and materiel might hinder its own capacity for a counteroffensive is the question bedevilling western officials. Withdrawal to a new defensive line might represent a favoured move, in the opinion of western experts.

 

American and European officials give an estimate of 200,000 killed or seriously injured Russian troops since February of 2022, with Ukraine suffering a loss equal to half of Russia's. Over the past six months, one western official felt Russia had suffered "between 20,000 and 30,000 casualties". Most were mercenaries fighting for the Wagner private operations focused on Bakhmut.

 

NATO's official estimate is that one Ukrainian had been killed or injured for every five Russians. The estimated ratio in the opinion of Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov, was "one to seven in our favour". Irrespective of which the implication is that Ukraine may have suffered several thousand casualties in defence of the city. Fewer Ukrainians die proportionately on the battlefield, however, taking into consideration the superior medical care given them.

 

One Western analyst stated: "Ukraine is losing people all along the front line but Bakhmut has given them a unique opportunity to kill lots of Russians too, given the [meat grinder] tactics the Russians use". Some experts are concerned that Ukraine may be expending high-quality troops and equipment to destroy mere Russian prison recruits as "cannon fodder". Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War felt that Wagner was committing some of its elite forces to Bakhmut, and Russian airborne forces had also joined the fight, however.

 

Ukrainian servicemen fire towards Russian positions near the city of Bakhmut. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images