As you probably already know, over the past six months or so, much of the fighting in Ukraine has been centered around Bakhmut is a town in Donetsk Oblast with a pre-war population of about 70,000. Since capturing Soledar in late March, Russian forces, led by the Wagner group, have been making painstakingly slow progress in the town, using human wave attacks to wear down the Ukrainians. A couple of weeks ago, it looked like the Russians might be about to finally capture the town. They pushed the Ukrainians to the westernmost suburbs and cut off most supply lines into the town. However, in part because of growing divisions between Wagner and the Russian Ministry of Defense, who really hate Wagner at the moment and have apparently refused to supply them with ammunition or air support, last week, the Wagner advance once again stalled. If this wasn't bad enough news for the Russians, on Monday, the White House told reporters that they believe the Russian effort in Bakhmut was, quote, exhausted and the Ukrainians began their own counterattack, which looks like it's since pushed the Russians back towards the center of the town. So in this article, we're going to look at how the Russian advance stalled the furious row going on between Wagner and the Ministry of Defense and Ukraine's recent counterattack.
At the end of March Russian forces had just pushed the Ukrainians to the west side of the Bakhmutka River. In early April. They pushed the Ukrainians to the west side of the T05 Road and by the end of April the Ukrainians were mostly on the west of the railway line, which runs down to Donetsk city. Wagner's success in April seemed to be because Wagner had successfully convinced the Russian Ministry of Defense to supply them with ammunition and air support. Until recently, the Russian army had refused to provide Wagner with proper air support and occasionally limited their ammunition supplies, probably because the Kremlin and especially Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu, didn't like Wagner's leader, Evgeny Prigozhin, and are uncomfortable with how powerful he's becoming. This changed in April. Wagner got all the ammunition they needed, and Russia started using its air force to attack Ukrainian positions in and around Bakhmut. In practice, this meant that the Ukrainians were confined to just the western most parts of the city. This wasn't terrible news because the Ukrainians were no longer at risk of an encirclement, which is what analysts were worrying about earlier this year. But it did mean that it looked like Wagner were on their way to capturing the town. This wouldn't have been good news for Ukraine. While Bakhmut might not have all that much strategic value given that it's been bombed to rubble, it has undeniable symbolic value. The Ukrainians have been holding on to it for months, and Zelensky himself has got into the habit of ending his daily video addresses with a triumphant Bakhmut holds. However, this isn't quite how things panned out.
At the end of April the intensity of fighting in Bakhmut decreased and Wagner stopped making advances, according to Prigozhin and Wagner aligned telegram channels. This was because the Russian Ministry of Defense stopped supplying Wagner with ammunition. At the end of April, Prigozhin released a furious video essay accusing so-called bureaucrats of lying to the Russian public and claiming that unless he received more ammunition and medical supplies before April the 28th, Wagner would retreat from Bakhmut. This apparently didn't happen, which is why on April the 30th, Prigozhin again asked for more ammunition and claimed that thanks to the lack of ammunition and air support, Wagner was losing roughly one man for every two meters of territory. This is broadly consistent with comments made by John Kirby on Monday when he claimed that US intelligence estimates that Wagner has incurred 50,000 casualties, including 10,000 killed in action since just December. In the same press conference, Kirby also claimed that the Russian advance in Bakhmut had failed and that Russian forces were, quote, exhausted.
To make things even worse for the Kremlin, on Monday afternoon, Ukraine announced that it had launched counter-offensive operations in Bakhmut. At time of writing on Tuesday morning it looks like Ukrainian forces have made some minor gains, recapturing a couple of streets in the north west of the city. Now, these advances haven't been confirmed yet. And it's worth saying that Russian telegram channels are denying the reports, but the claims are at least plausible, given that Prigozhin himself was predicting a Ukrainian counter-attack in Bakhmut as recently as last week. So what does all this mean and what happens next? Well, unless Wagner collapse, Ukraine are unlikely to completely recapture Bakhmut. Recapturing Bakhmut would be a gargantuan task. The city has been reduced to rubble, which slows everything down. And there are still thousands of Russians in and around the city. Nonetheless, this is still great news for Ukraine. Even minor gains will force the Russians to redeploy even more troops to the area, which will help Ukraine's counter-offensives elsewhere. And it's an enormous symbolic victory for Ukraine. Not only have the Ukrainians been defending Bakhmut for months now at enormous cost, both in terms of materiel and personnel the US has apparently been advising Ukraine to withdraw from Bakhmut since late January, and in March, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin openly encouraged Ukraine to retreat, insisting that a retreat would not represent a, quote, strategic setback and pointing out that the Ukrainians could retreat to the higher ground just outside Bakhmut.
Even usually pro-Ukrainian sources have expressed anxiety about Kyivs tactics in Bakhmut. The key of independent, for example, ran a piece in early March claiming that Ukrainian soldiers weren't being protected and their defence correspondent tweeted that he hoped the Ukrainian command really really, really knows what he's doing in Bakhmut. The fact that the Ukrainians have not only held on for this long, but are now pushing back seems to suggest that Zelensky was right to ignore his allies and stick it out in back mode. Now, it's important not to downplay quite how costly this has been for the Ukrainians. They've lost tens of thousands of troops and tons of materiel defending the town. And some analysts still think it was a mistake to sacrifice as much as Ukraine has for Bakhmut. Nonetheless, it's at least true to say that from Ukraine's perspective, the worst case scenario, i.e. encirclement, has been averted. And it's hard to see this as anything except a failure from the Kremlin's point of view.