The Reason Ukraine's Bakhmut Tactics Will Help It Strategically

Ukraine's tactics at Bakhmut - wearing down Russian troops, armor and artillery while forcing it to commit greater numbers of its best paratroop and naval infantry - has caused the Russian assault to fail and led to a slaughter of Russian soldiers in that sector which will make it harder for Russia to defend against a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Sometimes called a two-fer...JL 

Ian Lovett and Thomas Grove report in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine’s efforts to exhaust and deplete Russian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut will help it reclaim other territory in the country. Their efforts are part of a larger strategy. Ukraine says it is preparing to launch its own offensive, which could aim south toward the Sea of Azov, including the cities of Melitopol and Mariupol. “The enemy is trying to capture Bakhmut using its best units. Our task is to destroy as many of these enemies as possible and create the conditions for offensive actions." In recent weeks Russian progress in Bakhmut has appeared to stall, with the pace of assaults slowing.

Ukraine’s efforts to exhaust and deplete Russian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut will help it reclaim other territory in the country, a Ukrainian commander in the area said.

“Our main task is to wear down the overwhelming forces of the enemy and inflict heavy losses on them,” Ukrainian Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy wrote on Telegram below a video in which he delivered a similar message to troops. “It will create the necessary conditions to help liberate Ukrainian land and speed up our victory.”

For six months, Russian forces—led by Wagner Group paramilitaries—have been pushing to capture Bakhmut in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Much of the city has been flattened and both sides have endured heavy losses, leading some Western analysts to question whether holding the city was worth the resources Ukrainians were expending there.

 

Mr. Syrskiy, who visited troops around Bakhmut on Monday, acknowledged the difficulty of defending the city but told the soldiers their efforts were part of a larger strategy. Ukraine says it is preparing to launch its own offensive, which analysts say could aim south toward the Sea of Azov, a band of territory including the cities of Melitopol and Mariupol that Russia has occupied since early in its 2022 invasion.

“The enemy is trying to capture Bakhmut, using their best units,” Col. Gen. Syrskiy said on the video. “Our task is to destroy as many of these enemies as possible and create the conditions for offensive actions. Therefore, it is necessary to put an end to those units of the enemy that oppose you.”

In recent weeks, Russian progress in Bakhmut has appeared to stall, with the pace of assaults slowing. The leader of Wagner has publicly complained that his forces are being hindered by a lack of ammunition.

Still, Denis Pushilin, the head of the Russian-backed statelet Donetsk People’s Republic, based in a region that Moscow said it had annexed last year, said Wagner forces had pushed Ukrainian troops from an industrial plant in the center of Bakhmut.

“The enemy has already moved to previously prepared positions…beyond the periphery of the factory,” Russian state news agency TASS reported him as saying. “Our boys are on the move.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday led a panel of foreign ministers who discussed a peace plan proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky at the start of a virtual democracy summit organized by the Biden administration.

 

“We all have to be very much aware and beware of what may seem to be well-intentioned efforts, for example, to call for cease-fires which would potentially have the effect of freezing in place the conflict, allowing Russia to consolidate the gains that it’s made and simply use the time to rest and refit and then reattack,” Mr. Blinken said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged Russia to withdraw from “every square meter” of his country. “There should be no misinterpretation of what the word ‘withdrawal’ implies.”

Mr.  Zelensky is scheduled to address the virtual summit Wednesday. In Ukraine, Russian forces launched another wave of drone attacks overnight. Fourteen of 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia launched were shot down, according to the Ukrainian military. The remains of one drone fell onto a neighborhood in Kyiv, starting a fire, according to local officials.

In addition, Russian missile and artillery attacks across northern, eastern and southern Ukraine killed at least eight people and injured 66 others, according to Ukrainian officials.

“In total, 124 settlements were shelled with various types of weapons,” Ukraine’s military media center wrote Tuesday on Telegram, with 76 infrastructure facilities damaged.

Mr. Zelensky continued his tour of the country on Tuesday, visiting the Sumy region in northern Ukraine to mark the anniversaries of Ukrainian forces’ liberation of Trostyanets and defense of Okhtyrka from Russian forces. He also met with military officials and the heads of law-enforcement agencies to discuss the protection of Ukraine’s border with Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Pacific Fleet carried out military exercises in the country’s far east, firing Moskit cruise missiles in the Peter the Great Bay, less than 400 miles away from Japan and South Korea, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

The launch of the supersonic missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, comes amid heightened nuclear rhetoric and days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow planned to station tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of ally Belarus.

On Tuesday, Belarus’s Foreign Ministry repeated Mr. Putin’s statements criticizing the nuclear capabilities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and painting the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory as a similar step to those of countries in the alliance.

“Belarus is taking necessary reactive measures to strengthen its own security and combat readiness,” the ministry said.