Update:
🇺🇦 have re-entered the southwest of Bakhmut.
🇷🇺 carried out attacks towards the territory recently recaptured by 🇺🇦 northwest of the city.
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.
Because Russia won the battle, now Ukraine will get F-16 fighters........
Everyone needs to really think about that. Just another escalation in the war that was inevitable. You should just count on A-10’s next, and enough assistance that Russia will be moving nothing into Ukraine by train, plane, or automobile.
Russia didn’t win anything, and Ukraine certainly didn’t win, only death will win. Stupid war, Stupid prizes.
Spoken from the real overlord of poopy pants dementia dumba@@ “Senator from MBNA-Delaware Corporation” and his family grifters—— why none other than Xi Ping.
Getting the dumba@@es in the mil-industrial Beltway bandit crew who claim they are for “freedom fighters” of Ukraine, who INSTALLED the gay dancer boy “ish” Azov battalion into the Uke Presidency (Victoria Nuland, pick up the lobby courtesy phhone)— to “supply” (and have to make more) mil supplies to goad NATO into doing far less and still threaten the non-Communist Russians (who were invited into Ukraine by Biden’s “a little incursion would be OK” statement of crushing monumentally stupid StateDept drivel).
Xi standing by while the US wastes it’s talent and treasure on the most corrupt country in the world, short of Venezuela. Gives its borrowed money to Ukes for the kickbacks to all those “donors” to demonrat and neocon land.
Your “cheer” is one led by Xi. Now all we have to do is default on the chi-coms and the rest will be done.
Tiny little minds come up with this 30 years out of date sludge predicated on the Russia Russia is still Soviet. Nope. But all the dem Army colonel wannabees were raised in that utter blind falsehood.
If you had a nickel for every time Russia claimed the had taken Bakhmut... You’d be a rich.
Sadly, the first line of the Communist manifesto is... Lie, lie and lie some more.
True.
The “winners” are those who have padded their bank accounts off of the unnecessary death and destruction.
No— actually have REAL intelligence as opposed to the keyboard commandos who spout here. Senseless sounding? Poopy pants is not plain enough? It was enough to keep JoeBama out of the public eye because he is incontinent in both his oratory and excretory functions. That didn’t come from ChatBot (the lazy internet swine’s excuse and supply of intellect for cross commentary substituting for actual dialogue. Lazy.);.
Ukraine People should hang Zelensky.
He will sacrifice every last Ukraine Male, young or old, to try to save his pride.
By the way— you still subscribe to the Russia-Russia hoax first paid for by hitlery the mad biotch, vetted by Communist Brennan to the last cabinet meeting of obamaumao, JoeBama, Rosenstein, Comey, Clapper et al (Strozk, Page). Said meeting held on Jan. 17th,2017, in the White House? 3 days before Trump’s historic inauguration.
First act discussed directly with obamaumoa and JoeBama standing there, documented and agreeing— to get Pence to “rat” out their first target (who knew and still knows who they all are) Lt. Gen. Flynn (former head of Defense Intelligence Agency). Pence did the job he agreed to, moron that he is- allow strozk to set up a fibbie visit “interview” and “confess” to meeting with a Russian ambassador (all part of his NatSecAdvisor incoming job, btw)— and thus Trump was all “Russia Russia”.
Ukrainian RINOS rah rah for the scam that is the conflict there—are still on board with the russia russia crap, even after the Durham report closes and welds shut the fraudulant spew with facts. All fake as hell narrative created by hitlery’s pals in Fusion GPS, Perkins-Coie, and proven false first by Mueller Commission and now more so by Durham Report. By a wink and a nod the Beltway Uniparty continues the scam that is and has been Ukraine (from long before CrowdStrike was HQ’d there and ran the DNC’s servers.). Neocons are thrilled to maintain the fraud.
“Pyrrhic victory”
At best.
Pyrrhus was confident that he could extend his empire.
“...According to Plutarch, Pyrrhus is said to have told a friend that another victory against the Romans would “utterly undo him.”
True.
But the spoils include the people - some of whom Russia has moved from Ukraine deep into Russia. (Think both slave labor to leverage or abuse in various ways, and perhaps children to adopt.) And world acclaim: now that Russia appears to have taken Bakhmut, their armies are no longer mocked as much as they were at the start when they lost some skirmishes and armor.
Also, it moves Russian forces even closer to other towns, villages and transportation networks. For the next round.
The area would be _highly_ contested by the Russians who have pretty good missile systems, so A-10s would actually probably not fare well there.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the US thinks they own the whole world and I hope they never will at least not with the current ideology which they are attempting to spread around. Yes, there was a time, perhaps forty or fifty years ago when I gladly would have given my life to defend the US, but not anymore because of all the corruption and crap they try to spread. Those good old days have come and gone forever never to return again, sad to say.
Yes, there was a time, perhaps forty or fifty years ago when I gladly would have given my life to defend the US, but not anymore because of all the corruption and crap they try to spread. Those good old days have come and gone forever never to return again, sad to say.
I would have to say the same, but 1973 was a time of lies, deception and traitorous activities we knew nothing about.
There should be no reason to defend the country, wait until we have actual enemies coming for us, and Congress decides to declare war. So many died from liver failure, agent orange. So many lost their way, never to be found again, I know of many. All for naught. The sin was not that we walked away, it is that we ever committed our troops to Korea, Vietnam, or any other without a Declaration of war.
My grandkids are now of age. I counsel them to NEVER join, and I will help them go to Canada if drafted. My grandaughter was set to report to the Marines after graduation, she backed out after seeing the place full of queers, trannies, and woke ideology. I am proud of her.
Well you got a point and I agree. Fortunately as well as luckily I missed by a hair getting drafted into that contrived Vietnam debacle. The world is going crazy...
Well you got a point and I agree. Fortunately as well as luckily I missed by a hair getting drafted into that contrived Vietnam debacle. The world is going crazy...
Update:
🇺🇦 have re-entered the southwest of Bakhmut.
🇷🇺 carried out attacks towards the territory recently recaptured by 🇺🇦 northwest of the city.
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