Ukraine Quantifies It's Success In Defending Bakhmut

The relative cost and benefit of defending Bakhmut - aka the Butcher's Bill - continues to favor Ukraine in its military operations there. 

Unseasonable snow this week has made Russian offensive operations even less productive than usual. JL 

Matthew Luxmoore and Georgi Kantchev report in the Wall Street Journal:

30,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded since the battle for Bakhmut began nine months ago, with the Russian side advancing 15½ miles in that time. Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said time was working against Russia as it suffers heavy manpower losses and struggles to mount assaults on Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut. (And) Ukraine has had success in destroying Russian counter-battery radars used to detect the location of Ukrainian artillery pieces and guide strikes against them.

Ukrainian commanders on Friday touted their latest successes in holding Russian forces back in Bakhmut, as they continue to defend the city in eastern Ukraine despite falling ammunition stocks and pressure from some Western officials to withdraw.

Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said time was working against Russia as it suffers heavy manpower losses and struggles to mount assaults on Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut.

“Our defense forces continue to defend Bakhmut, inflicting great damage on the enemy,” Col. Gen. Syrskiy said in a Telegram post, adding that Ukrainian troops were “breaking the enemy’s fighting spirit and ruining its plans.”

He published a video showing Ukrainian surface-to-air missile systems striking Russian drones flying over Ukrainian-held territory near Bakhmut, where drones have been actively used by both sides to pinpoint enemy artillery systems and target troop positions.

The fight for Bakhmut has been going on for months, and both Ukraine and Russia are now under major pressure as their stocks of artillery shells dwindle and battlefield losses mean units on the front lines need to be replenished with reinforcements. 

As Russia surrounds the city from three sides, both armies are relying heavily on artillery salvos to advance. The U.K.’s Defense Ministry on Friday said Ukraine has had success in destroying Russian counter-battery radars used to detect the location of Ukrainian artillery pieces and guide strikes against them.

The challenge of raising new recruits is acute for both sides. Ukraine is scrambling to promote military service and convince men to sign up as it continues a mobilization that has been ongoing since the start of Russia’s invasion last February, while Russia has lost many of the 300,000 men drafted into the ranks of its military following a call-up of reservists and fighting-age men in September.

Russia has thrown tens of thousands of troops at the operation to capture Bakhmut, many of them convicts recruited by the paramilitary Wagner Group to fight alongside regular Russian forces. Ukraine has defended its decision to stay in the city amid heavy losses despite calls from some Western officials to abandon it because it says it has been able to severely weaken Russian forces there.

Ian Stubbs, a senior military adviser at the U.K.’s delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said that some 30,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded since the battle for Bakhmut began nine months ago, with the Russian side advancing 15½ miles in that time.

“The staggering casualties suffered by Russia around Bakhmut appear to have had significant impact,” Mr. Stubbs said in a statement to the OSCE on Wednesday. Russia’s assault in Bakhmut has seemingly stalled, he said.

 

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday said it had no plans to order a new mobilization, describing the number of men called up for service as sufficient to meet the military’s needs. On Saturday, Russia will begin its regular annual conscription, with 147,000 citizens of ages 18 to 27 expected to be called up. Russian authorities said Friday that the new conscripts wouldn’t be sent to Ukraine.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the new conscripts wouldn’t increase Russian combat power in the short term, as they must undergo months of training and service. “[President Vladimir] Putin remains unlikely to deploy newly conscripted troops to participate in combat in Ukraine due to concerns for the stability of his regime,” the think tank said in a report. 

As Ukraine on Friday marked the first anniversary of Russia’s withdrawal of forces from parts of the Kyiv region, the prime ministers of Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia traveled to the Ukrainian capital to meet with government officials and show support for the country’s defense effort.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said Friday that Russian troops had perpetrated more than 9,000 war crimes in and around Bucha, the city near Kyiv where evidence of mass atrocities was uncovered after Russian soldiers who had been occupying the area pulled out last March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday described Bucha as “a symbol of the atrocities of the occupying country’s army.

“We will never forgive. We will punish every perpetrator,” the Ukrainian president said in a statement posted to his social-media channels.

Russia has denied that its forces have committed war crimes, and has described scenes showing bodies of dead civilians found in Bucha following its forces’ withdrawal from the city as staged for the purposes of discrediting Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

In Moscow, meanwhile, Russia codified its increasingly confrontational relationship with the West into a new and more aggressive foreign-policy doctrine on Friday. The new document was necessitated by the “revolutionary changes” in world affairs brought upon by the Ukraine conflict, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a government meeting.

Though the individual policies aren’t new, as a package, they describe Russia as facing existential threats to its security and development from the West and could take “symmetric and asymmetric responses to threats” against it. The document, approved by Mr. Putin, calls the U.S. the main driver of anti-Russian sentiment.

At the same time, the document declares a strategic partnership with China, building on Moscow’s closer ties to Beijing, which has become Russia’s main economic lifeline in the face of Western sanctions.

Also Friday, the International Monetary Fund gave its final approval to a $15.6 billion loan to Ukraine, providing much-needed funds to help stabilize economic and financial conditions of the war-torn country. The loan, approved by the IMF’s executive board, will be extended over a four-year period, with $2.7 billion to be disbursed immediately.

The loan is part of a $115 billion international support package for Ukraine, provided by the Group of Seven, the European Union and other donors. The program aims to shore up the fiscal, external, price and financial stability of Ukraine, while strengthening the country’s governance and institutions to prepare for postwar reconstruction and eventual accession to the EU, the IMF said.

The IMF acknowledged that its lending program to the country at war comes with “exceptionally high” risks, and was made available with the reaffirmation of support from a number of member nations.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to have a devastating economic and social impact,” Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s first deputy managing director said in a statement. “Activity contracted sharply last year, a large swathe of the country’s capital stock has been destroyed, and poverty is on the rise.” She noted that the Ukrainian authorities have nevertheless managed to maintain overall macroeconomic and financial stability.