The bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine: what now after the fall of Bakhmut? Moscow criticizes G7 resolutions as anti-Russia and anti-China

Moscow and the Wagner mercenary group rejoice: the last Ukrainian soldiers have left the small town of Bakhmut in the Donbass. They fled, Russian channels report on social media.

Whether it was an escape or an orderly retreat, the urban area is now completely under the control of the Wagner group. Their boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced in front of the destroyed train station that the Wagner troops would be replaced by regular troops from the Russian Interior Ministry in the coming days.

The destructive effect of slide bombs

The capture of the last Ukrainian bastions west of the city was made possible by the use of heavy artillery and attacks by the Russian air force. For several weeks now, Russian pilots have been using glide bombs, which are dropped at a great distance from the front and then guided to the target with the help of satellite navigation, among other things.

These are conventional aerial bombs, of which Russia has large reserves. They are complemented by a swing-wing device and control system – a cheap improvement on outdated technology similar to the JDAM glide bombs that Kiev received from the Americans.

With these heavy boomers, the Russians also managed to destroy the largest high-rise in Bakhmut; something that could hardly have been achieved with artillery. As a result, the Ukrainians have lost their safest bases yet. The city is now almost completely destroyed.

Linked long-range anti-aircraft defenses

With their rocket attacks on Kiev and other cities far from the front lines, the Russian military leadership has forced the Ukrainians to station their newly delivered Patriot anti-aircraft batteries in the rear rather than close to the front. This allowed the Russian fighter jets to drop their glide bombs near the front without the short-range air defenses stationed near Bakhmut being able to intervene.

If there were Patriot missiles in the front line, such aircraft would be quickly shot down because they have to release their glidebombs at high altitudes and are therefore easily seen on radar screens.

Bakhmut was definitely the bloodiest battle of the war so far. Even on a very conservative estimate, casualties – dead, wounded and missing – must have totaled tens of thousands on both sides. The Wagner group had to pay an extremely high blood price. While regular Russian troops concentrated on the flanks near Bakhmut, Prigozhin’s mercenaries had to attack the Ukrainians head-on, fighting for every house.

Devastating blood toll

But the losses on the Ukrainian side were also enormous. A soldier, now stationed with an anti-aircraft unit a few miles from Bakhmut, talks about his time in the trenches. “I was there for two months, in the beginning my unit consisted of 25 soldiers. Today there are only four men left, including me.”

One of his comrades shows on his smartphone where he fought. “We didn’t even have enough shovels to dig foxholes. All the army gave us was uniforms, guns and a 50-year-old armored personnel carrier, which looks more like a tin coffin than a tank.” Everything else, ie off-road vehicles, silencers or binoculars, had to be taken by the soldiers themselves.

Russia wanted to use the city as a springboard for further conquests, but whether the exhausted troops at Bakhmut would be able to do so seems doubtful. There is a road from Bakhmut to the industrial city of Sloviansk, but the Russians have recently suffered setbacks along this route.

The Ukrainians have been attacking the Russian flanks at Bakhmut for some time now, trying to tie down large troop formations from the Kremlin. Meanwhile, preparations for counter-offensives on other sectors of the front continue. The Russians expect them further south towards the Sea of ​​Azov and in the east near Swatowe.

The Battle of Bakhmut helped the Ukrainians buy time to train new brigades with western main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. Whether Kiev’s calculations will ultimately succeed will become clear in the coming months. (aargauerzeitung.ch)