Posted on 05/21/2023 8:14:55 AM PDT by RandFan
Armchair Warlord
@ArmchairW
The Battle of Bakhmut is over. It was one of the longest battles of the 21st century to date, and certainly the bloodiest.
Russia won. In doing so it destroyed much of the Ukrainian Army's combat power while buying time to generate forces for future offensives.
How much of the Ukrainian Army's combat power?
The Grey Zone Telegram channel compiled a partial list of Ukrainian units reported in Bakhmut at some point during the nine-month battle.
This is something like a third of the AFU's order of battle. Losses were obviously extreme.
Russian casualties were modest in comparison and, critically, largely occurred in an auxiliary formation that is not part of the regular Russian military - the Wagner Private Military Company, which bore the brunt of the fighting.
Ukrainian propagandists have begun predictably claiming that the battle somehow "bought time" for them to launch a strategic counteroffensive, which can be disproven with a pretty simple examination of the state of play: Firstly, the Ukrainians already launched a multi-brigade counteroffensive in a failed attempt to retake the city, which failed with considerable losses and little ground taken.
Was that "the" counteroffensive? If they plan to attack elsewhere the lives of those men were wasted. There is a related talking point that the AFU only attacked with the brigades in the immediate area, which is very misleading - Ukrainian "brigades" are basically front-sector commands that constantly churn through combat battalions.
See @MNormanDavies' work. As such the actual question is how many battalions a given brigade had assigned to it at that time.
Also the order of battle for the Ukrainian attack was and remains extremely murky beyond the heavy participation of Azov, one of the AFU's premiere units. Similarly this makes the "AFU ORBAT" graphic above quite misleading - these units were not all packed into Bakhmut at the same time (as rather ridiculously shown on some maps) and mostly showed up as subordinate battalions to a handful of "resident" AFU brigades. There is another talking point going around that the "Bakhmut counteroffensive" was only a small effort, which is facially ridiculous given the length of front attacked and reports of extremely heavy fighting.
I remind the reader the Russian MoD routinely sits on footage.
They killed hundreds of Ukrainian commandos during an attempt to storm the Zaporozhe Nuclear Power Plant in October, released nothing, and let Ukraine claim no battle even took place for months until they admitted the loss recently.
Secondly, the massive Ukrainian commitment to Bakhmut had an enormous cost in operations not undertaken elsewhere.
Remember the great Ukrainian winter offensive in Zaporozhe that never happened? I do. Those troops were fed into Bakhmut. AFU attrition over the fall and winter was so bad that NATO had to build them another army from the ground up - one larger than that of the United Kingdom - and they may have already lost a significant amount of that force.
Many of those losses were suffered in Bakhmut. Third and related to the above, Ukraine deployed its regular army to the failed attempt to hold Bakhmut. Russia sent in the Wagner PMC.
The AFU was decimated by the battle, while the Russian Army is not only intact but has used this time to generate substantial new forces.
This was even acknowledged by pro-Ukrainian commentators at some points, along the lines of "Ukraine is losing its army and Russia is losing its prison population." After spending the last ten months largely on the defensive (there was no Russian winter offensive), and with limited prospects for another large Ukrainian offensive, the Russians are likely to attack in the near future.
The size and scope of that operation is the largest single unknown of this war.
Addendum: Why Bakhmut? Because it was the next town in front of the Russian Army after Lisichansk fell last July and the AFU reserves showed up in force to stabilize the front.
Great battles are often fought over obscure places.
Poor guy calls himself armchair warlord but his twitter handle is armchairw. Too bad the lone letter w is associated with the former president bush.
That only took a year….
I thought that too! Which is why I copied the handle as it might be confusing.
He does provide a cogent analysis. Plenty of links and reports in the thread.
And he’s a self-described “weaboo,” which likely means he’s an Anime/Manga freakazoid. Yeah, solid source...
Because Russia had specific goals and tried to fight the war as humanely as possible. If they really wanted to, Ukraine would have fallen within a month.
Because Russia had specific goals and tried to fight the war as humanely as possible. If they really wanted to, Ukraine would have fallen within a month.
Not that it matters much what I think, feel or believe but I think you hit the nail straight on, something I thought for a long time.
Bakhmut is dead! Long live Bakhmut!
Yeah, let's hear from some real solid sources. Like Daily Mail or WaPo or MSNBC or Yahoo or...
“Russia had specific goals and tried to fight the war as humanely as possible. If they really wanted to, Ukraine would have fallen within a month.”
Yes, but recently the gloves have started coming off a bit, with Ukraine and the CIA attacking WITHIN Russia. Sabotage behind the lines. Russia is really getting tired of it.
A lot of people don’t know that Russia has NOT declared war on Ukraine. If(when?) they do, what we’ve seen so far will look like paintball. And with the arrival of more sophisticated US weapons)F16’s?!!?), resulting in more behind-the-lines escalation, Russia may not have a choice.
NATO is a giant money laundry for US Defense Contractors, while allowing Neocons to congratulate each other. But NATO is getting its ass handed to it, and they can’t afford it.
Escalation ahead.
confusing. Destroying Ukraine but failing to occupy it is not only inhumane it is the definition of pointless.
raining missile barrages on population centers until nothing is left but smoking ruins is more like Hamas dreams rather than proud Russian Order of St. George ribbon worthy visions of greatness.
Cheerleaders for Russia: pick up your pom-poms and let out 10 loud cheers for Russia.
Long live Putin!
Long live Russia!
Death to Ukraine
Death to Zelensky!
Death to America!
Welcome to our new overlords!
Neither destroying Ukraine nor occupying it were Russian objectives.
raining missile barrages on population centers until nothing is left but smoking ruins is more like Hamas dreams rather than proud Russian Order of St. George ribbon worthy visions of greatness.
Why don't you stop regurgitating leftist Western media propapganda. Russia only countered because the corrupt U.S. kept funneling arms and equipment through Ukraine. They've given Ukraine numerous chances to surrender and they treated captured Ukrainian troops very well, in contrast to Russian captured troops getting tortured and killed.
No, no.... stop with the ridiculous Hobson's coice. We don't care about Russia either. We don't want any war involving the U.S.
I don't have a dog in the Russia/Ukraine fight -- never have, and you won't find a single post from me taking a side. You will, however, find several posts -- spanning years, even before Ukraine -- knocking the "vaunted" Russian military. It's a joke, and always has been.
I am amazed at the fringe "sources" both sides -- both sides -- are turning to for their information these days, no matter the issue. And if that source says exactly what someone wants to hear it is considered well researched and/or reputable. Also, a joke.
Don’t worry, this Ukraine thing has almost run it’s course. Then the Deep State will tell you the next”thing” you are supposed to support.
Yep, that is true.
I don’t trust many sources, but this seems to be the most logical conclusion.
During the Cold war, it was the habit of the Deep State to tell us there was a missile gap, that the Soviets had more, better, powerful, mobile missiles and warheads. NOW? They are a paper military, little ol’ Ukraine is kicking their asses.
I always thought that the best thing to happen to Russia was the fall of the Soviet regime. I am hoping the same thing happens to the USA. This country needs a thorough cleaning. Maybe they will even publish all of the secrets like the Kremlin did.
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