Since August, Russian forces (including a large contingent of Wagner Group mercenaries) has been assaulting the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the Dunba with almost monomaniacal focus, despite very little to show for their efforts. Despite small successes for Russia (a few streets here, an industrial area there, even capturing a garbage dump on the edge of town was listed as a major Russian achievement a few weeks ago) almost all of Bakhmut has remained stubbornly in Ukrainian hands.
However, over the last day or two, tentative reports having come in that not only have Russian attacks slacked off, but that Ukrainian forces have recaptured not only just about all the hard-won territory Russia had gained in the city itself, but that some outlying areas were liberated after months of control. At the same time, there are numerous, persistent reports that Russia is running low on artillery shells in the region. (To be fair, repeated predictions that Russia must be running low on dumb ammunition of various types have failed to pan out heretofore.)
Here Suchomimus reports that Russia has been pushed out of the industrial areas of Bakhmut in the east, and that Ukraine has recaptured most of the town of Opytne to the immediate southeast.
This follows the Institute for the Study of War analysis from a couple of days ago that the Russian pace of attack has slowed.
Russian forces’ rate of advance in the Bakhmut area has likely slowed in recent days, although it is too early to assess whether the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has culminated. Russian milbloggers acknowledged that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and its surrounding settlements, with one claiming that Ukrainian forces pushed back elements of the Wagner Group to positions they held days ago. Ukrainian social media sources previously claimed that Ukrainian forces completely pushed Russian forces out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut around December 21. ISW has also assessed that Russian forces made slightly fewer overall advances in the Bakhmut area in November and December combined as compared to the month of October.
Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on December 24 that Russian forces currently lack the necessary stockpile of artillery munitions to support large-scale offensive operations and that sustaining defensive operations along the lengthy frontline in Ukraine requires the Russian military to expend a significant number of shells and rockets daily. The Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force released an interview on December 24 with a Ukrainian servicemember in the Bakhmut area detailing that Russian forces have been conducting an extremely high pace of assaults on Ukrainian positions in the area with little corresponding progress. The Wagner Group’s reported heavy losses in the Bakhmut area in recent weeks have also likely strained Russian forces’ current operational capabilities in the area.
The Russian military’s personnel and munitions constraints will likely prevent it from maintaining the current high pace of offensive operations in the Bakhmut area in the near-term. Russian forces previously allocated significant resources in a meat-grinder effort to seize Severodonesk and Lysychansk in spring–summer 2022. Russian forces culminated after capturing Lysychansk in early July and failed to capture neighboring Siversk to the east or Slovyansk to the northeast. The Russian military’s fixation with conducting a highly attritional campaign to achieve the tactical objectives of capturing Severdonetsk and Lysychansk ultimately undermined the Russian military’s ability to achieve its larger operational objective to envelop Ukrainian forces in a cauldron along the E40 highway and eventually drive to Donetsk Oblast’s western administrative borders. Russia’s relentless and costly push on Bakhmut may also degrade Russia’s ability to pursue long-term objectives in the Donbas theater.
Another sign Russia may be running out of shells in Bakhmut: A tweet from Wagner Group saying just that, while also calling the Chief of Russian General Staff a “faggot.”
Russian mercenaries from Wagner insult the Chief of Russian General Staff with obscene words and complain that they have no ammunition pic.twitter.com/7LYvN2MzHr
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 26, 2022
“We have no shells! The boys are dying for us!”
As usual with Ukraine news, all this is very tentative, and could be reversed to tomorrow. But right now it looks like Ukraine has the upper hand in Bakhmut.
Tags: Bakhmut, Donbas, Military, Opytne, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Suchomimus, Ukraine, Wagner Group
Anyone think that the Russians sought to lead the Ukrainians into a modern-day Verdun to “bleed them white”? Neither side in WW1 benefited in the meat grinder of Verdun.
EP, Russian military “strategy” for centuries has basically been based on Russia’s ability to deploy a lot more bodies than anyone else. Basically, it’s the only thing that Russian “strategists” know how to do. With Russia now in demographic collapse, this muscleheaded use of the only strategy that Russian “strategists” know is not only calamitous for Russian operations against Ukraine – it’s also calamitous for what little chance for survival as a nation “Russia” had even before starting this war that Russia has no means to fight (let alone win).
Russian demographics over the last century mean that they can no longer effectively support their preferred military strategies and techniques. This means that by creating a Verdun, they’re effectively doing more damage to themselves than the Ukrainians.
The elites in Russia haven’t figured out that they’re no longer running a growing nation with a growing population. Instead, the whole thing is a wasting asset that they’ve got no hope of conducting their usual modus operandi with.
I don’t know when they’re finally going to admit it, or what’s going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but I can’t see Russia coming out of this intact. At. All.
The Russian ethnic population isn’t doing at all well, demographically. Way too many abortions, way too many drunks, way too little in the way of intelligence and initiative. You can see that on display in the way they fight; they’re not actually soldiers; they’re cannon fodder, being thrown against a wall and going splat.
This is the same sort of syndrome that afflicted the Tsar’s armies during the Russo-Japanese War, and WWI. The Russians are not bad, so long as they’re beating up people way below their weight class, like Georgia or Chechnya. Put them up against a real military force that’s near their weight class? They fumble the ball, every time.
Their best hope is that they somehow persuade Ukraine’s supporters to pressure a peace deal that leaves them with something to show for the slaughter. I don’t think that’s going to happen, though.
I do wonder what the hell is going on under the blankets, so to speak… I rather suspect that Zelensky has a lot on the Biden Krime Krewe, and that’s why they’re so eager to give him what he wants.
Regarding my Verdun Theory: I gave too much credit to the Russian Stavka. Russian/Soviet military culture is what it is and the Russian infantryman is little regarded other than a meat bag made for throwing at the enemy’s firepower.
Sad, but backed by History.
@ Earth Pig,
As with all such things, it works… Until it doesn’t.
I think that this war is going to be the breakpoint where the traditional Russian manpower strategy finally hits the wall; they’re operating as though they still have the manpower superiority that they used to possess, and the sad reality is, they’re actually in demographic decline. Instead of recognizing that, and undertaking to correct that problem, they’re instead doubling-down on the old-school “Throw human lives against the wall until something sticks…”, and hoping for the best.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Putin is the worst thing that has happened to Russia since Nicholas II or Lenin. Russia is going to pay a price for creating a system that brought him to the forefront as a leader, just as the US is going to pay a price for creating a system that brought creatures like Obama and Biden to the head of state position.
Kirk: Great observations as always.
Always thought that Russia’s greatest threat came from China, not NATO. A vastly underpopulated and resource rich Siberia is a tasty target for the PRC.
Oh, NATO was never a threat, other than in Putin’s delusions carried over from the Cold War.
China? LOL… Everything he’s doing is playing perfectly into their hands. The Central Asian nations are gradually peeling away, back into China’s sphere of influence, and that’s mostly down to Putin’s stupidity in how he’s been handling all of this.
The only growing demographics in Russia right now the minorities. The ethnic Russians themselves? Not interested in reproduction; they’re like human Panda bears who would rather drink and drug themselves into self-destructive somnolence and sterility.
If Russia still exists as more than a rump statelet surrounding Muscovy at the end of this century, I would stand amazed. I don’t see how they could manage that, without significant and deep reforms being undertaken immediately.
Instead, they’re going to keep doubling-down on it all like the 500lb fat chick who won’t stop eating, even after the fire department has to hire a crane and cut a hole in her bedroom wall to get her to the hospital.
I’d feel sorry for the stupid bastards, but they’ve done so much damage to the world in the last century that it’s not even funny. I mean, for the love of God, they were responsible for WWI, enabled Hitler’s rise to power and conquest of Western Europe, and then all the Cold War criminal activities they supported. Ever note how the terrorism tapered off, once the Wall came down? How much of the activities in Western Europe were supported by the KGB and GRU? How many lives were lost due to Russian nihilism and drive for destruction?
If Russia vanished as a nation tomorrow, it would be a mercy on all of us. I don’t dislike Russians as individuals, but Russians in large groups on Russian soil are a disaster to their neighbors and general menace to everyone else.
You go down the roster of disasters in world history, and you’ll usually find a Russian somewhere involved, whether it was the slaughter of the world’s whale population to meet “production norms” in the 1950s and 1960s, or the rise of nihilistic pointless terrorism around the world. Who taught the Islamic world terrorism? The Russians.