Since the summer, fighting has raged around Bakhmout, which Moscow has been trying tirelessly to conquer without succeeding despite the support of the paramilitary group Wagner, a battle that has turned into an obsession for a city that is now largely destroyed.
The hostilities in recent weeks have taken on all the more symbolic importance for Russian officials as the conquest of the city would come after a series of humiliating defeats, with the retreats from the Kharkiv region in September and from the city of Kherson in november.
Recently, troops from Moscow have advanced a little in the direction of Bakhmout, announcing the capture of small settlements. Without however seeming in a position to take the city, which would still have nearly half of its 70,000 pre-war inhabitants, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
Faced with Ukrainians who have had time to prepare their defence, the Russians seem to be throwing all their energy and equipment into the battle to take this city located 80 km north of Donetsk, and 100 km west of Luhansk, the two strongholds of pro-Russian separatists.
“We are perplexed,” a Western official told AFP this week when asked about Russian objectives in Bakhmout.
With the onset of winter, many analysts believe that the current front line will stabilize after weeks of Ukrainian advances in the northeast and south.
“Every meter counts”
In its battle for Bakhmout, the Russian army is supported by mercenaries from the Wagner group, including prisoners who have been promised a reduced sentence to enlist in Ukraine, and civilian reservists mobilized in September.
The strategy is the same as elsewhere: artillery pounded the city, destroying all the infrastructure, in the hope of a withdrawal of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.
According to the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which analyzes day-to-day developments on the front, “the Russian efforts around Bakhmout show that the (Moscow troops) have fundamentally failed to learn lessons” other battles where they had lost a lot of forces.
For the ISW, the Russian obsession with Bakhmout even allowed the Ukrainians to carry out other successful offensives at other places on the front line where the concentration of troops was therefore less.
“Russian efforts to advance on Bakhmut have resulted in continued attrition of Russian manpower and equipment, pinning troops around relatively insignificant localities for weeks and months,” the ISW analyzed.
Despite everything, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged on Wednesday a “very tough confrontation” on the spot. “Every meter counts,” he added in his daily address.
“Slaughterhouse”
An AFP team recently saw in the Donetsk region the Ukrainian army bringing heavy artillery into the area, and groups of reservist soldiers were visible along the roads leading to Bakhmout controlled by kyiv.
For some observers, the battle of Bakhmout illustrates above all Moscow’s desire to finally record a first victory after months of setbacks against a Ukrainian army, galvanized by Western weapons.
The last Russian successes in Ukraine date back to the beginning of the summer, when they were able to take the cities of Severodonetsk and Lyssytchansk. An eternity for the most warmongers in Moscow.
“The Russians are continuing their offensive to divert media attention from the setbacks of this fall,” says Mykola Bieliekov, researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies in kyiv, a vision also shared by the Ukrainian military command.
“The Russian command wants to control the entire Donetsk region, and Bakhmout is the main gateway to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk”, two important cities in the Donbass, adds to AFP Michael Kofman, director of studies on Russia at the NAC. , an American research institute.
Wagner’s boss, the sulphurous businessman Evgueni Prigojine, has even greater ambitions: “the Bakhmout slaughterhouse” must “destroy the Ukrainian army”.