After months of stalemate around the strategic city of Bakhmut in Donetsk (eastern Ukraine), Russian forces have changed their tactics and managed to advance into a position that could allow them to break through Ukrainian defenses in the region.
According to Russian military bloggers and an assessment by the UK Ministry of Defence, troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner control almost all of Soledar, a small town of 10,000 inhabitants famous for its salt mine, which is located 15 km northeast of Bakhmut.
Since October, Russians and Ukrainians have turned the region into a scorched earth, a human meat grinder as defined by the Kiev Armed Forces. Bakhmut itself today is more of a ruin, similar to what happened in Mariupol (south), taken by the Russians in the bloodiest siege of the war that started in February last year.
Supply lines to Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut were disrupted. On Monday (9), President Volodimir Zelensky said that “thanks to the resistance in Soledar, we gained time”, without specifying why.
Of the four regions annexed by Vladimir Putin in September, Donetsk is the least Russian-controlled — perhaps more than 50% of it is in Moscow’s hands. There are also offensive actions in Liman, the city from which the Russians withdrew in October, and Adviika.
The difficult situation consolidates the end of the wave of exaggerated optimism about the pro-Kiev moment of the war, which was evident by the sequence of good news for Zelensky: the resumption of territories in Kharkiv (northeast) and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the west bank of the Dnieper River in Kherson, abandoning the regional capital of the same name, the largest city they had conquered.
There were more symbolic moves, such as drone attacks on air bases in Russia and a deadly attack against a base with recruits in Donetsk, but the fact is that since the end of the year, the stalemate has returned to dominate the scene —with a bias in favor of the Russians, who have had time to reorganize and deploy the 320,000 reservists they mobilized for the meat grinders to the west.
“Soldiers are wounded and die either from the cold or from loss of blood, without anyone catching them,” said Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov on Youtube, naturally painting a more cruel picture on the side of the adversary.
In the south of the country, the Ukrainians have failed to advance beyond the Russians’ most elaborate defensive lines on the east bank of the Dnieper, and Moscow continues to impose a punitive campaign against civilians, targeting the country’s energy infrastructure with missiles and suicide drones in the dead of winter.
Last week, after much delay, western countries announced the shipment of tanks to Ukraine, exactly the type of weaponry needed for the campaign in the east – which presupposes its use to break lines, in what is otherwise a great artillery battle.
The numbers, however, are still modest, and there are no signs of war tanks, a demand from Kiev. The US will send 50 Bradley Infantry Fighting Tanks, Germany 40 similar Marder tanks and France an uncertain number of AMX light tanks.
If it stays at that, it should not be enough to change the course of the war, as well as the complex American Patriot anti-aircraft batteries, which will be ceded by NATO countries (military alliance led by the USA), such as Germany. If the influx increases, as in the case of the Himars rocket launchers, the impact could be significant.
Zelensky wants at least 300 new Western tanks. Of its pre-war fleet of 987 vehicles, plus 230 Soviet T-72 models from Poland, at least 444 were destroyed according to the Dutch military monitoring website Oryx.
The United Kingdom, according to the local press, is considering sending some heavy Challenger-2 models, thus seeking to encourage Germany to do the same with its modern Leopard-2. A former NATO commander, British General Richard Shirreff, told London radio LBC that “the West should have sent tanks much sooner”.
Putin has already signaled that, at least for the moment, he would be satisfied with negotiating a peace that would leave him with the chunks he annexed from Ukraine, about 20% of the country’s territory including Crimea, which it absorbed in 2014. Kiev obviously does not accept it. , such a position.
In the West, the Russian moment has not gone unnoticed. After weeks of talking about what he considered Moscow’s certain defeat, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that “Russia should not be underestimated”.
With that, in addition to making a “hedge” about the situation in the field, it opens up space for an increase in the shipment of weapons to Kiev, something that has been adjusted throughout the conflict due to the fear that the Russians would consider supplying, for example, fighters as too direct alliance involvement in the conflict—risking World War III.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
