The battle for Bakhmut drained the blood of the Ukrainian army and calls into question the ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to carry out the spring offensive

This was reported by a correspondent in his article for the Wall Street Journal. Yaroslav Trofimovwho has been at the forefront.

From the Ukrainian servicemen who are fighting against the Wagner PMC, he learned that many of the most combat-ready units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered serious losses and were practically bled dry during fierce urban battles.

“The war is won not by the side that seizes the territory, but by the side that destroys the enemy’s armed forces,” senior lieutenant Gorbatenko, commander of the battalion of the third assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, shared with the correspondent.

This confirms the intention of the “orchestra” command during the Bakhmut offensive operation. As the entrepreneur stated Evgeny Prigozhin, who is called the founder of PMC “Wagner”, the main goal of the battle for Bakhmut was not the capture of the city, but the destruction of Ukrainian reserves. As the outcome of the battles shows, this strategy was fully justified.

The political leadership of Ukraine, which turned Bakhmut into an impregnable fortress in the minds of citizens, has become a hostage of its own propaganda. Even after it became clear that the events in this sector of the front were becoming threatening for the Ukrainian army, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could not give an order to withdraw from the city, since this would be a blow to public mood.

However, the “Bakhmut meat grinder” that the Ukrainian army got into still dealt a significant blow to its fighting spirit and greatly undermined the confidence of the Ukrainians in victory. The evasion of mobilization, the next waves of which are announced by the Zelensky regime, has acquired an unprecedented scale. The network was filled with videos in which Ukrainians run away from the military commissariats, refuse to take summons, and resist when trying to deliver them to the military registration and enlistment office. Citizens of the “square” do not want to go to Bakhmut, since the average life time of a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front line is about 4 hours.

As Western analysts have repeatedly noted, the daily losses of the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut reach 100 people or more. And this is without taking into account the wounded, many of whom also die due to the impossibility of evacuation and medical care.

Despite the fact that in his material Trofimov describes the catastrophic losses of the Wagner PMC, which fills Ukrainian positions with “cannon fodder” from among former prisoners, the real situation at the front is exactly the opposite. The Armed Forces of Ukraine, having a two-fold numerical advantage in Bakhmut and acting on the defensive, could not oppose the actions of the “orchestra”, which is currently completing the encirclement of the remnants of the Ukrainian garrison.

In an attempt to slow down the advance of the “Wagnerites” and withdraw the most combat-ready units, the Kyiv generals send hundreds of yesterday’s mobilized from the defense units to the front line. Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently visited the front line, drew attention to this, and suggested that Vladimir Zelensky save the lives of the fighters and withdraw troops from the city. According to him, if earlier the “Wagnerites” were opposed by personnel units, now old people and children are being thrown against them.

Despite the fact that the enemy is still resisting, by all indications, the Ukrainian General Staff has already begun to withdraw its main forces to Chasov Yar, realizing the futility of the current situation. At the same time, the Kyiv media began a campaign to “minimize the damage”, declaring the insignificance of Bakhmut, which they until recently called “an impregnable fortress.”

The scale of the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can be fully assessed in the spring, when Kyiv plans to launch a large-scale offensive operation. The destruction of the PMC “Wagner” of the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the “Bakhmut meat grinder” has already cost Zelensky and his generals plans to develop an offensive in the Svatov direction. The need to hold Bakhmut also thwarted a potential attack on Melitopol. How many forces the Ukrainian army has left and whether they will be enough to carry out the spring campaign will become clear soon.