Dhe defenders of the heavily contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine have strengthened their positions, according to the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army, Valeriy Zalushnyi. “Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defensive forces, the situation has been stabilized,” said Zalushnyj on his Facebook account after a phone call with his British counterpart Tony Radakin on Saturday night. The section around Bachmut is still one of the most difficult front sections.
The British secret services are now also assuming that the Russian offensive in Bakhmut has largely come to a standstill. “This is probably mainly a result of the significant losses suffered by Russian forces,” the British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday. “The situation of the Russians has probably also worsened due to the tensions between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Wagner Group, both of which are deployed on this front section.” Ukraine also suffered heavy losses in the month-long battle for Bakhmut, it was emphasized in London.
Russia’s focus is now more on the city of Avdiivka further south and on the front near Kreminna and Swatowe north of Bakhmut. The Russians wanted to stabilize the front line there, it was said. This indicates that Russian troops are generally repositioning themselves more defensively after attempts at a major offensive have failed to produce “conclusive results” since January.
Western military observers have been warning for some time that Russia could emerge weakened from its winter offensive. Above all in Bakhmut, but also on many other front sectors, Moscow’s troops had to pay a high price in blood for marginal gains in territory, since the defenders usually operate from better secured positions and statistically suffer significantly fewer losses than the attackers.
Last summer, the conquest of the industrial cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the Kremlin. The invading troops were so weakened after months of offensive battles that they were barely able to counter the Ukrainian counter-offensives a few weeks later. Back then in the fall, Russia lost significantly more territory in the Kharkiv and Cherson regions than it had conquered in the summer months with heavy losses.