Posted on 05/08/2023 4:50:11 PM PDT by delta7
After 9 months, Bloodbath Bakhmut is falling. Soon, scared, maimed and dying Ukrainian soldiers won’t have to scream in the “Meat Grinder”. Maybe Ukraine is falling. Russia stands on the dead, proud captor of buildings like holes and earth like charcoal.
There's the possibility that I'm lying. After all, John Kirby, retired Admiral and ex-spokesperson for the Pentagon, and now spokesperson for the National Security Council, stated on May 2 that:
"Russia's attempt at an offensive in the Donbas, largely through Bakhmut, has failed."
In the words of the White House, "The National Security Council is the President's principal forum for national security and foreign policy decision making."
Who am I, armed only with a laptop, to disagree with mighty U.S.A. intelligence? But I’m going to give it a bash anyway.
Trivial Bakhmut
Bakhmut is useless and everything. It's irony. It's propaganda. It's the reality of war.
We were told that it was a nothing town, an insignificant home to 71,000, but good enough to have become the grave for possibly more than that number (from other villages, towns, cities and countries).
British journalist, David Patrikarakos, wrote that: *
“If you want to discover the madness of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, come to Bakhmut… The truth is Russian troops are dying in their thousands here - and possibly for nothing.”
It’s especially something to people who fled from their homes. It’s even more to the survivors of the stubborn few, the hopeless and courageous, who realised that without home they risked becoming nothing. They’ll have gone to bed as Ukrainians facing Russian missiles, and awoken Russian facing Ukrainian missiles. Very Slavic.
It's something to the people of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR), which, along with the Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR), form the majority of the Donbas region. Once they were Ukrainians, now they’re fighting for their Russian cultural identity.
It strategically something to Russia and Ukraine. Bakhmut is where railways and highways meet. Controlling transport routes controls resupply. And destruction of Bakhmut hampers a Ukrainian attack towards Donetsk city and Mariupol.
Whose “Meat Grinder” is it?
When soldiers never stopped dying in this so-called unimportant place, some began describing the butchery in Ukraine’s favour.
Zelensky was the loudest, pretending that Ukraine had created a slaughterhouse for Russians. The Media ran with that narrative as if, in Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ video, they were the children being cast into the meat grinder.
Konrad Muzyka, a Polish military analyst, said in December 2022 that:
"The Ukrainians are just wearing the Russians down, and it's quite effective in terms of manpower and equipment. They are increasing the costs to the Russians."
I emphasise that the loss of Ukrainians, in his words, is “quite effective in terms of manpower”.
When that lie became too crazy to maintain in March 2023, Muzyka changed his tune to:
“Ukrainians should have pulled back weeks ago.”
NBC news emphasised that contrast with:
“[Muzyka] was outlining a view that has become increasingly common among some close observers of the conflict: The defense of Bakhmut was crucial both strategically and symbolically, but the situation has deteriorated to the point that it may now be more costly than it is worth. Kyiv is now suffering such heavy losses, Muzyka said that [Ukraine] could be setting back its own hopes of advances in the future.”
To make the article more confusing, as if on purpose, NBC then quoted the U.S.A’s General Mark Milley who mimicked Zelensky by stating:
"Ukraine has fixed the Russian forces at that city, and they're exacting very heavy costs on the Wagner Group and the Russian regular military."
In March, Milley testified to a U.S. House Armed Services Committee hearing that the Wagner Group:
"…are suffering an enormous amount of casualties in the black mud area. The Ukrainians are inflicting a lot of death and destruction on these guys. It's a slaughterfest for the Russians. The Ukrainians have fought very well."
By May, Milley was exaggerating that Russia had 250,000 casualties.
Some of his points, as singularities, are true. The Ukrainians have fought well. The Wagners will keep counting their dead in this ferocious battle. As will regular Russian troops and the DPK’s. ‘Forgetting’ that the DPK forces are fighting for their self-proclaimed homeland is to pretend that there wasn’t a civil war leading to this war. It’s as false to exclude that the Russians have also fought well. This is war – both sides have heroes, cowards and victims.
To only have a Wagner narrative is political. Consequently, I’m not going to dig into that aspect but I’ll let Larry Johnson and Simplicius the Thinker speak about Wagner’s ‘leader’, Evgeny Prigozhin (whom I believe only acts on orders from the Kremlin).
Milley’s slaughterfest is supported by an unnamed NATO official who told CNN that:
"Russia is losing 5 of its soldiers for every Ukrainian it kills in the war's bloodiest battle."
In a separate article, CNN had that kill ratio at 7 to 1. The Guardian mimicked that the same week but indirectly made it as much as 10 to 1:
"Ukraine’s national security chief, Oleksiy Danilov, has said that one Ukrainian is killed for every seven Russians, and claimed that Ukrainian soldiers are killing as many as 1,100 Russians a day. It is impossible to verify Danilov’s figure. Nevertheless, all things point to Ukrainian losses being high, at about 100-200 a day."
On May 1 2023, the U.S.A. claimed that Russia had 100,000 casualties in the Donetsk region, including 20,000 dead (of which half were Wagners).
As late as March 2023, Zelensky said:
"We are destroying the occupier everywhere - wherever it yields results for Ukraine. Bakhmut has yielded and is yielding one of the greatest results during this war."
It’s all bullshit!
General Milley and his propaganda partners override reality at the expense of context. Russia had more ammo and missiles, and was attacking the Ukrainians from 3 sides in Bakhmut. These nightmare facts are inconvenient for warmongering death reporting.
Troy Offenbecker, an ex-Marine fighting in Bakhmut, said in February that:
"It's been pretty bad on the ground, a lot of casualties. The life expectancy is around four hours on the front line.”
It’s foul, whether directly or via omission, to suggest that the Ukrainians have had the upper hand. That will have lessened pressure on Zelensky to pull them out sooner. Fake news is sending soldiers (once citizens like us) to their deaths. It’s also an example of the gross and deliberate remanufacturing of evidence that has kept NATO closer to the profits of the military industrial complex than to peace talks.
And the War continues…
We read the chapters of this war, wondering how the book will end. The death of a story requires the birth of a new one. It’s like the gods of an old religion becoming the devils of the new with the caveat that propaganda is a devil unto itself.
We were told that Bakhmut was insignificant. When that became disbelief, we were sold the story of symbolism, told to believe that Russia hadn’t retreated to better positions in Kherson and Kharviv. Instead, Ukraine had defeated it, and thus Putin needed to convert Bakhmut into a glorious symbol of victory so that the Russian Public never revolted against him.
Colonel-General Syrskyi, Commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, said that:
"Militarily, Bakhmut has no strategic importance. But next to that, it has psychological significance. Because after a series of losses that the enemy suffered…, it will be symbolic for [Putin]."
The USA and NATO agreed with him yet General Wesley Clark, former commander in chief of NATO forces in Europe, had said the opposite, months earlier. He likened Bakhmut to a "fire trap" for Ukrainian forces that would deal Putin a hand that he could play for temporary ceasefire or truce.
"If the Russian armed forces manage to push back the positions of the Ukrainian army while units from Kherson arrive at that place, Putin will win."
With more Ukrainians getting killed, the story shifted. It was said by foreign observers that Zelensky needed to hold Bakhmut for the morale of his troops – “Glory to Ukraine!”
I'm a firm believer in all wars being terrible, and thus all sides being losers, but there are moments when one side is the bigger loser. That’s Ukraine. If it defied the odds and won, it’s economy and population would still be in ruins.
The Danger of Unearned Symbolism
Paul Shinkman, for the U.S. News & World Report, pointed out that Zelensky's promise to never back down could backlash his credibility:
"The otherwise insignificant town of Bakhmut has become critical for Kyiv and emblematic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ability to liberate territory."
Symbolism is useful when affecting morale, for we are creatures of emotion, particularly teen students and office workers with guns who've been told that the only way is war. To win a war, one's army must hold hope of victory.
Through the result of a battle, symbolism can only help one side. Maybe that’s why Zelensky had prepared another narrative, telling us that Bakhmut is Ukraine’s killing zone for Russians.
He expected us to believe that despite Ukrainian forces being surrounded on 3 sides, and their 4th under artillery attack, they had the Russians trapped.
When it became impossible for the world to ignore that it was the Ukrainians who were trapped, the next narrative, in two parts, floated higher in the toilet bowel of political words:
1) Russian forces were being contained to one area.
2) Ukraine was delaying Russia in one place in order to prepare a mass counteroffensive.
Colonel-General Syrskyi said that the defence of Bakhmut:
“…gives us the opportunity to restrain the enemy’s offensive for several months and not expand the front in this area, destroy its best units, and gain time.”
But Russia wasn’t constrained. During the Battle for Bakhmut, it was attacking along a 1000km frontline. And still is.
Just north of Bakhmut, it captured Soledar. Above that, there's fierce fighting in Bilohorivka where Ukraine has the higher ground. Southwards, Avdiivka risks a fate similar to Bakhmut as the Russians are creating another cauldron. In Vuhledar, the Russians were initially stomped on but, with a change in tactics, the situation has evened into a nightmare for both sides. In Kherson, on opposite sides of the Dnieper River, Russia is clearly winning the artillery game.
The complete destruction of Marinka never made headlines.
Russia has successfully been hunting brigade headquarters, armoured vehicles, air defences and ammo supplies yet the Media mostly shows their missiles as attacks on citizens. The loss of experienced leaders will hamper Ukraine on the ground. The massive explosion in Pavhlorad means less bullets and mortars.
In several places, a successful tactic has been to stop Ukrainians redeploying, ensuring that their troops are exhausted, and running out of ammo.
Yet The Atlantic magazine ignored all that, selling another version of Bakhmut’s sacrifice being worthwhile:
“Far from being needlessly destructive, the Ukrainian decision to fight for Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Vuhledar has been, like most of the Ukrainian military’s decisions in this war, grounded in solid strategic understanding. The plan has been to use the benefits of being on the defensive to accumulate and train forces for the counteroffensive. Indeed, rather than harming any counteroffensive, the Ukrainian decision to prolong the fighting in these cities has more likely been integral to maximizing the chances of success.”
The illogic of that cheerleading is that Ukraine could have relinquished Bakhmut to defend from a better position whilst developing its counteroffensive.
Was the focus on Bakhmut meant to be a diversion from the poor condition Ukraine is in?
Moon of Alabama pointed out that:
"During the war, Kiev first burned through its standing army material and personnel. It then received a large amount of Soviet era equipment from former Warsaw Pact members and burned through that stash. It has now received 'western' arms for a third army that will largely consist of mobilized civilians with little military experience. After the counteroffensive has run its course, no matter the outcome, that third army will largely be destroyed. There will be no more material and personnel for a fourth army. In contrast, the Russian military is largely undamaged. So says General Cavoli, the U.S. commander in Europe:
‘The Russian ground force has been degenerated somewhat by this conflict, although it is bigger today than it was at the beginning of the conflict…The air force has lost very little; they’ve lost 80 planes. They have another 1,000 fighters and fighter bombers. The navy has lost one ship.”"
The impending Ukrainian counteroffensive appeared non-stop in the news. In the space of 5 days, starting 28 April 2023, Milley, Zelensky and Ukraine's Defence Minister said that Ukraine's counteroffensive was imminent. That was accompanied by claims of 'disorderly' and morale-broken Russian troops. But what if Russia attacks first or is waiting to see Ukraine's move before countering with the many plans its undoubtedly prepared. Alternatively, both sides have already begun, a slow escalation instead of an exclamation for the sake of those who expect war to be made for TV.
Goaded by the U.S.A. and NATO, Ukraine could increase its offensive whilst knowing that attacking the enemies defensive position guarantees its own, bigger losses. Losses, in case you’ve forgotten, are made up of hearts and limbs.
A truism of war is that it’s volatile, a human and bullet volcano that could erupt in unexpected directions. No war is won or lost until it is so. But Ukraine would have to be unpredictable to win, possibly playing with dams, nuclear plants, long-range missiles, assassinations, sabotage, false attacks, false flags and Russian soil. And there must be some in the West hoping or planning for nukes to define Russia as the Devil.
Russia only has to keep doing what it’s been doing. Ukraine isn't the little guy, not with all the NATO weapons it’s received, but Russia has more people, is more experienced, and more organised than Ukraine’s funders. Ukraine may roll out the tanks, but Russia has tanks too. Maybe, most importantly, Russia doesn’t make military decisions based on tabloids and social media commentary. It has shown patience.
Consequence…
The Minsk treaty was an ignoble excuse by Germany and France to allow the U.S.A. to expand Ukraine's military into a Russian black eye. The 14,000 killed in the Ukrainian civil war never mattered to Ukraine's Western backers. Zelensky broke his election promise for peace, betraying his Russian-speaking citizens who voted him into power. Instead, he enacted laws of xenophobia against them. Russia's attempts at dialogue were batted away.
War is the result. Bakhmut is the consequence. Bakhmut is dead, homes reduced to stones in the land of black mud. Symbolically, Bakhmut eclipses Mariupol to become Ukraine's greatest loss. Maybe Artemovsk will rise as weeds between the ruins.
Strategically, Russia can move into the rest of the Donbas, to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, respectively 45km and 55km away. If those and Severodonetsk (88km) are defeated, the DPR would be secure. Russia may not be ready for that task. That could become a bloody Bakhmut bus. It would make sense to capture the higher ground of nearer Chasov Yar, but the Bakhmutovka River will serve as a line of defence.
The blood-soaked soil will soon be dry enough for heavy vehicles to move. They could try retake Bakhmut before Russia builds fortifications. That seems pointless when only occupying Crimea could win the war, or regaining Mariupol would sever Russia's land bridge to it. Both would be a slaughter of Ukraine's soldiers unless the Russian navy could be neutralised.
With Russia having destroyed many of Ukraine's front line air defences, Russian aircraft may finally enter in a big way, just like they frightfully did in Syria. Ukraine may have Patriot missiles for the first time, but they’re in short supply.
At the least, smaller victories are needed to retain waning Western enthusiasm. To keep the weapons flowing, maybe a Ukrainian victory over Melitopol or Donetsk would work. Not that those would be an easy task. If the smaller Horlivka, south of Bakhmut were reached, it would put pressure on Donetsk, the capital of the DPR. Conversely, if Russia extended its territory from Kramtorsk to Pavlohrad, Donetsk would be safe from missiles for the first time since 2014.
Zelensky’s Shame
Since the beginning of the war, I've debated Zelensky's nature with myself, but what’s happened in Bakhmut assured the death of his ambiguity.
Zelensky knew that his men faced better trained and better equipped soldiers. He knew they were surrounded by missiles and horrifying incendiary weapons. Ordering retreat and regrouping on higher ground was the logical choice. From Kyiv, despite what had happened to Soledar, he effectively and repeatedly ordered his soldiers to die. **
In comparison, the Russians cared more for their troops in Kharkiv. Knowing they were sparse, more military police and border guards than an occupying army, they were ordered to retreat. No matter that Western media used that to claim Russian weakness and Ukrainian victory, Russia then pulled back from the Kherson side of the Dnieper River. They rearranged and recuperated, saving their men so that they could build better defences whilst delivering the safer offensive of attrition.
Zelensky must accept that he’s damaged, and that his troops in other places will hesitate if they’re also given stay-until-you-die orders.
Towards Peace
It's up to you to decide whose telling you the truth but I admit one lie. I said that Ukrainians wouldn't scream in Bakhmut anymore, but they likely will, and so will the Russians. That's war. It's why we have to be anti-war.
But the bodies in Bakhmut can become meaningful as peace emissaries. Although less than the unoccupied Odessa which prevents Ukraine from becoming landlocked, Bakhmut is a bargaining chip for Putin towards an armistice. Maybe a failed counteroffensive needs to be added before this war ends. That’s not support for either side but the quickest route to peace.
For now, Bakhmut is not the War. It’s the Bloodbath, the Meat Grinder and Zelensky's Shame.
Subscribe * I may have criticised David Patrikarakos but he’s a talented writer and his article on Wagner should be read. In tandem, listen to Alexander Mercouris’ account of the possible Russian intelligence forces behind Wagner.
** "Forward!" he cried from the rear, and the front rank died The general sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side Black and blue, and who knows which is which and who is who? Up and down, but in the end it's only round and round. - 'Us and Them' by Pink Floyd
Are you also into rape and murder like your "good guy" friends?
Well, his complaints WORKED. He’s now been placed IN CHARGE of Russian ammunition allocations.
And I’m sure the Russian soldiers on the receiving end of Ukrainian artillery have no complaints, right?🙄
My meat grinder is bigger than your meat grinder.
It’s fun to laugh at Putin’s inept military. But then I remember Kabul 2021. In fact, when was our last military “win” (Grenada doesn’t count)? 1945?
Good article.
I can’t decide who is the biggest liar:
Zelensky, Kirby, or Milley???
The Meat Grinder is the Money Maker.
Battle of Kiev is ongoing.
Not really.
The Battle of Kyiv was won by the Ukrainians by themselves in March 2022 (last year).
Now there are Russian missile attacks, but this is no more a continuation of the battle of Kyiv than the 1944 V2 missile attacks on London were a continuation of the battle of Britain
My money is on THE GOOD GUYS!
In war, especially an unjust war, there are no good guys.
-Invade Afghanistan, stay for ten years, and then another repeat duck-and-run with no American left behind
There WERE Americans left behind. Lots of them.
There sure were!
Just another of the many, many lies we have been told by our government!
It was a lot of disjointed sentences put together. Nothing cohesive about it, at all.
The first Gulf War was a pretty huge win.
Not enough men to re-build Ukraine? Just use North Africans, and Turks, lots of them. and they work cheap—but you will have to put up with their mosque and low regard for women and gays. Its a small price to pay to humble RuZZia! Who need a Slavic Ukraine in a woke world?
What a naive bunch of fools who believe anything they hear!
We are being used. Time to wake up before WW III is forced upon us by propaganda, False Flag attacks, CIA actions and just out right lies. PEACE NOT WAR—TRUMP NOT BIDEN! No American should be sent to fight while Mexico invades America. Mexico IS the Cartels.
YOU SURE GOT THAT RIGHT!
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