Russia's "Colossal Losses" at Bakhmut Show It Has "Failed To Learn"

Russia's military continues to waste scarce human and operational resources on "insignificant" settlements, suggesting that it has failed to learn any lessons from its earlier military humiliations in Ukraine. 

Russian losses around Bakhmut in the past two weeks may be as many as 9,000 killed and wounded. JL 

Scott McDonald and Zoe Strozewski report in Newsweek:

"The costs associated with six months of brutal, grinding, and attrition-based combat around Bakhmut far outweigh any operational advantage the Russians can obtain from taking Bakhmut. Russian offensives around Bakhmut are consuming a significant proportion of Russia's available combat power, facilitating Ukrainian counteroffensives elsewhere. Russian troops, in their current degraded state, are likely unable to accomplish this task. (And) Russian efforts around Bakhmut "suggest Russian forces failed to learn from previous costly campaigns focused on operationally insignificant settlements."

Temperatures in the eastern Ukraine city of Bakhmut are downright chilly right now but bloody battles are getting heated daily between Ukrainians and the opposing Russian forces.

The Battle for Bakhmut is looming to be deadly for both sides. The Russians could wear down their own troops, and morale, even if they were to take the city and claim victory. A long-fought battle of six months would probably give Russia little reward, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

"Even if Russian troops continue to advance toward and within Bakhmut, and even if they force a controlled Ukrainian withdrawal from the city (as was the case in Lysychansk), Bakhmut itself offers them little operational benefit," the ISW said Wednesday evening. "The costs associated with six months of brutal, grinding, and attrition-based combat around Bakhmut far outweigh any operational advantage that the Russians can obtain from taking Bakhmut."

Temperatures in that part of the country are already frigid with high temperatures in the 20s or 30s for the next five days and into the teens at night.

The city of approximately 70,000 residents has already been reduced to mostly rubble from constant shellings, and soldiers are fighting from underground bunkers.

Russia has control of many surrounding areas but faces a daunting task of possibly fighting for Bakhmut for at least six months in brutal battles that lead to mounting deaths and not much to show for it.

"Russian offensives around Bakhmut, on the other hand, are consuming a significant proportion of Russia's available combat power, potentially facilitating continued Ukrainian counteroffensives elsewhere," ISW said.

Russia's attempts to capture an embattled city in eastern Ukraine have resulted in "colossal" losses for President Vladimir Putin's army, according to a top Ukrainian defense official.

Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of defense, told CNBC Wednesday that the city, Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, was "undoubtedly one of the key hotspots at the moment" in the ongoing war.

His assertion that Russia was facing major military losses, as well as other assessments, seems to undercut recent claims from a Russian-installed leader in Donetsk that Bakhmut could soon be within Russia's grasp.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S. think tank, said in an assessment earlier this week that recent Russian advancements around Bakhmut do not mean that Russia will be able to fully seize it anytime soon.

 

"Russian troops, in their current degraded state, are likely unable to be able to accomplish this task quickly," the ISW said in a report released Monday.

ISW said that Russian military efforts around Bakhmut "suggest that Russian forces failed to learn from previous costly campaigns focused on operationally insignificant settlements."

Bakhmut is somewhat in the middle of nowhere, strategically speaking, for Russia's operational objectives other than its railroad and roadway hub.

Huseyn Aliyev, a research fellow and lecturer at the University of Glasgow, said occupying Bakhmut would have some significance for Russia.

"All other cities and towns in Donetsk region are too far from the Russian lines and the capture of Bakhmut will signify at least some progress for Russians in Donetsk region," Aliyev told Newsweek.Russia has lost nearly 89,000 soldiers since the start of the war, according to the Ukraine Ministry of Defense. Russia has maneuvered troops from various spots in the past few months. The latest is that Russia plans to mobilize troops from Belarus into its occupied territories of Ukraine.

"It is expected that the grouping of the enemy's troops operating in the temporarily occupied and temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine will be strengthened due to the transfer of individual units from the territory of the Republic of Belarus after they acquire combat capabilities," the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said on Sunday.