There is a reason that Moscow might be resorting to human wave attacks.
—
Its not Moscow - these are Wagner Group mercenaries - the boss recruited them form Russia’s prisons. This serves to empty the prisons out and save Moscow money.
They have a 2 month contract with Prigozhin and their sentences will be commuted, but if the retreat they will be shot, or like one troop, who was captured and returned in a POW exchange, have their heads bashed in with a sledgehammer. Video on the internet somewhere.
The idea Prigozhin said was for them to kill high grade material (Ukrainian troops) and die because they are low grade material. Taking Bakhmut is not the objective. Killing UA troops, in this war of attrition, is. This is the exchange both Putin and Prigozhin are willing to make - the number of Russian that die is not relevant to their calculations.
Wars of Attrition are like this and have not been seen in modern times. However, Attrition is the Russian way of war - everyone and everything is expendable to achieve the objective. 100K dead or 2 million dead - all the same to Russia.
“Attrition is the Russian way of war - everyone and everything is expendable to achieve the objective. 100K dead or 2 million dead - all the same to Russia.”
Yes, but that’s only viable if they are actually achieving a worthwhile objective, which doesn’t appear to be the case. Which is why I say they resort to this tactic simply because they can, not because it’s effective. It’s just the only tactic they have available which might potentially still be effective.