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Above all, Michailo Podoliak’s candid statements make one thing clear: how heavy the pressure is on the Ukrainian high command to justify Bakhmut’s losing defense.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper “La Stampa”, President Zelenskyj’s adviser was unusually candid about his own defense tactics: Ukraine wants to continue inflicting the heaviest possible losses on Russian troops in Bakhmut in order to prepare its own counteroffensive to the at the same time as promising as possible.

“We don’t have to hurry. We will reorganize in the next two months. We will tap the Russians in Bakhmut and then concentrate on another area,” Podoljak told La Stampa.

In recent months, Ukrainian officers and soldiers have issued several expressions of displeasure calling for the evacuation of the strategic secondary city. The high own losses no doubt rub on the morale of the troops.

The German newspaper “Bild” even reported an open dispute between President Zelenskyy and Chief of Staff Valery Zalushni over the continuation of the struggle. It is not known how many soldiers Ukraine has lost during the nearly nine months of fighting. But the losses undoubtedly run into the thousands. Kiev responded with a communiqué emphasizing the unity between the president and the army command. Persistence is “more necessary than ever” in Bachmut.

Even a small Russian victory would be fatal

Accordingly, the Ukrainian high command has been trying for several days to regain sovereignty over the issue of significance. First, in a CNN interview, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defended staying in Bakhmut: the fall of the city would pave the way for the Russians to conquer other cities in the Donbass. Moreover, even a small victory threatens to mobilize society in Russia and increase confidence in the Russian military.

Subsequently, Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Sirski visited the besieged city several times to encourage his own troops. As a further publicity measure, the Ukrainian army has in recent days quantified Russian losses in Bakhmut in a daily balance, which it has never done before for an individual front section. On the other hand, they are still silent about their own losses.

On Sunday evening, Zelenskyi emphasized the high casualties the heroic defense of Bakhmut claimed from the Russians. Since March 6 alone, the Russians have had to regret 1,100 deaths there. There were also 1,500 wounded who were permanently unable to fight. “I want to thank everyone who really fights for Ukrainian land, for Bakhmut!” said Zelenskyy in his speech.

Although the Ukrainian Bakhmut strategy is hotly contested among international military experts, it recently gained a prominent advocate. Former US commander in Iraq and CIA chief David Petraeus says Zelenskyy “has no choice but to ask his fighters to detain Bakhmut”.

Since in Bachmut’s “meat grinder” it is not only about the number of Russian losses, but also about their quality, the ex-general states in the magazine “Politico”: Because there, in addition to the Wagner mercenaries, mainly elite units are of the airborne troops are deployed, their decimation especially weakens the Russian army.

According to Petraeus, Russia did not deploy just one division in the battle: “This is a very small reserve to be able to exploit front breakthroughs.” On the Ukrainian side, on the other hand, reports have been piling up for days that training abroad on Western combat vehicles such as the British Challenger main battle tanks and the US Bradley infantry fighting vehicles is about to be completed.

What Petraeus does not say: Bachmut’s strategy is therefore linked for better or for worse to the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. If Selenskyj’s army threw back the Russians on a large scale in the spring, he did the right thing with Bakhmut. If, on the other hand, Russian lines are not as weakened as hoped, it could seriously undermine the position of the Ukrainian president among the people and the military leadership. (aargauerzeitung.ch)