The Reasons For Russia's Current Faltering Around Bakhmut

The logical reason for not completing the encirclement of Bakhmut is that Russia's generals understand they do not have the manpower or weaponry to hold the positions if they could take them, leaving them vulnerable to counterattacks which could worsen their strategic position.

But another plausible reason is that Putin and Russia's military want to eviscerate the Wagner Group due to Prigozhin's political ambitions to succeed Putin. The Kremlin is willing to sacrifice Wagner believing they can negotiate a favorable outcome in Ukraine leaves Putin in charge of Russia. JL

Mark Sumner reports in Daily Kos:

Russia is afraid to push those flanks and complete Bakhmut’s isolation because they don’t have enough forces to hold the lines if Ukraine counters. It takes significant manpower to protect the flanks on any advance, and there are plenty of indications that Russia simply lacks the bodies. In fact, Russia southwest of Bakhmut is currently losing ground. (But) many suspect that rather than close the pincer around Bakhmut, Russia’s ministry of defense is happy to leave Bakhmut open so Ukraine can finish off Wagner. Shoigu has zero reason to give Wagner and Prigozhin a victory. (And) Putin wants these factions fighting each other.

For most of last year, I happily pointed to sources suggesting Russian troops suffered such poor morale that they would inevitably cease fighting. We hoped for mass surrenders, or troops packing up and returning home. We seized on reports of troops ignoring orders to advance, and videos of families back in Russia furious at their government for treating their loved ones as “meat.” We thought the harsh Ukrainian winter might break the will of the Russian army.

And yet here we are, with Russia making 60-90 attacks every single day. Who knows, maybe some of the above is true, but on the battlefield, we’re seeing plenty of evidence of Russians leaning into the fight, defending positions fiercely, and attacking with energy.

Whether they are so brainwashed that they truly believe that the war in Ukraine is existential to Russia’s existence, or whether the famous Russian passivity to authority overrides their will to survive, it’s clear that hopes that shitty Russian morale would hasten the end of the war has proved unfounded. 

In Russia, the “government” is thought to be a separate, almost miraculous entity, something entirely different from the people. Ordinary citizens do not consider themselves as a part of the country, only as expendables.

When your national identity says you are an insignificant piece of crap who deserves whatever authority deems of you, then it’s easier to understand why Russian soldiers are perfectly content to be sent to their deaths. It is their fate, as Russians, to suffer. 

It’s hard to grasp that as Westerners, and thus we overestimated the desire of Russians to save themselves from senseless and needless slaughter—or at least I did.

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Yesterday, Mark Sumner gave a fairly detailed update on the Bakhmut situation—Wagner mercenaries are pushing heavily toward city hall for propaganda purposes, while the pincer movement north and south of the city has stalled. This state of affairs has led various sources on both sides of the conflict to heavily speculate on the relationship between Wagner and Russia’s military. 

What everyone agrees on: Wagner is focused on the battle inside Bakhmut, which is now a direct head-on advance against Ukrainian defensive positions. Meanwhile, regular Russian army forces are holding the flanks to the north and south of the city. Everyone also agrees that inside Bakhmut, Ukraine’s defensive lines aren’t concentrated around the administrative city center. There are areas of the city, dotted with defensible high rises, that are easier to hold, but Wagner has clearly decided that planting their flag (not Russia’s) at city hall is more important than militarily defeating the bulk of Ukraine’s defenses. Their thirst for propaganda is deep. 

And everyone agrees that the flanks are stalled. The debate is over why.

Theory 1: Russia is undermanned, can’t hold the flanks, and is running out of ammunition 

In this reading, Russia is afraid to push those flanks and complete Bakhmut’s isolation because they don’t have enough forces to hold the lines if Ukraine counters. 

Look at those two flanks northeast and northwest of Bakhmut. Both have become mini salients of their own, exposed to potential Ukrainian counterattack. It takes significant manpower to protect the flanks on any advance, and there are plenty of indications that Russia simply lacks the bodies. In fact, Ukraine has successfully pushed back the Russian presence southwest of Bakhmut in the last week. See the town just west of Bakhmut on the map above? That’s Invanivske. Russia hasn’t just been unable to keep pressure on that town, and on the Road of Life it sits on (the last road supplying Bakhmut), but it is currently losing ground south of it.  

Meanwhile, reports abound of Russia’s “shell hunger,” or lack of ammunition. Russia has explicitly asked China for help (rebuffed for now), so American intelligence claims Russia has gone to North Korea as its desperation grows. So even if it wanted to push forward around Bakhmut, and even if it had the troops to do so, it might not have the artillery firepower to carry out its one and only tactical approach—reduce ground to rubble, send cannon fodder forward to see if any defenders are left, and keep repeating the process until an area is cleared. 

Theory 2: Russia is happy to sit by and watch Wagner (and their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin) destroy themselves. 

There has been a great deal of palace intrigue over Prigozhin’s obvious political ambitions, and his effort to build his stature in Putin’s eyes at the expense of Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (how has he kept his job this long?). The conflict has erupted out in the open, both with Shoigu and Prigozhin taking verbal shots at each other, and reportedly on the battlefield as well. 

In recent months, Prigozhin has boasted Wagner is the only force to advance anywhere on the front line (he’s right, but barely), and complained that his supply shipments of ammunition and artillery support have dried up. Now, many suspect that rather than close the pincer around Bakhmut, Russia’s ministry of defense is happy to leave Bakhmut open to supply so Ukraine can finish off Wagner once and for all. Shoigu has zero reason to give Wagner and that peacock Prigozhin a victory anywhere on the map. They won’t even fly the Russian flag!

Putin has been happy to field multiple armies in Ukraine—Russian army, Wagner mercenaries, Kadyrovite militia from Chechnya, local militias from both the Russian occupied Luhansk (LPR) and Donetsk (DPR) regions, and Putin’s private Rosgvardia national guard. One single powerful defense ministry could one day challenge Putin’s rule. So a fractured military apparatus is by design. Putin wants these factions fighting each other, and we know this because he’s letting the feud play out, regardless the consequences on the battlefield. 

But those consequences naturally lead to what we’re seeing in Bakhmut. Unable to take it by themselves, Wagner needs the help of other forces in the area to finish the job. The system itself actively discourages that kind of cooperation.