The collapse of Bakhmut
The situation at Bakhmut has been dire to say the least for the Ukrainian side. Over the past week, it went from the Russians crossing the highway to the North. To them advancing 3 kilometers to cut the last major supply road to Bakhmut from the western cities.
When I said in the last article that if the Russian forces capture Berkhivka and Yahidne, it would accelerate the collapse of the Ukrainian lines in Bakhmut, I was not kidding. As evident by the fact that kilometers have been captured in all directions in the span of a week.
Even the Eastern part of Bakhmut where the Russian forces were having trouble pushing due to the amount of high rise buildings that Ukrainian soldiers would hide and fire inside, is gradually being pushed back. Wagner forces have even crossed the Bakhmutovka River (in blue), and coupled that with the fact that earlier today, the Ukrainians blew up a bridge linking Eastern Bakhmut to the center signals either a withdrawal or the Russian advance is too strong.
The entire red area with red lines is the captured area today by Wagner/Russian forces
Moving onto the North of Bakhmut where the major advances took place. After the capture of the previously mentioned 2 villages, it was nothing but open ground left to the last major supply road, which the Wagner forces are now in ~500 meters of, established fire control (artillery strikes, tank fire, etc.) over the highway. The only way the UA can still use this road is at night time, and even then it’s still quite hard since most of the Wagner tanks and artillerymen have drones with night vision on.
Moving to the south where the Wagner forces have also started to make a breakthrough into another section of the highway (although this one has been cut for weeks now) near the cemetery and MIG statue area.
So you can see how dire the situation for the Ukrainian forces are, being pushed back on all fronts and with all the major roads being cut the Ukrainians realistically only have 4km of open ground left before being fully encircled which could potentially leave 10-15k troops in the Bakhmut pocket, which is a lot more than then siege of Mariupol back in May of last year where 1,500 Ukrainian (mostly Azov battalion) troops were stranded in Mariupol after a 2 month long siege. Most surrendered.
There is some theories floating around for why it collapsed this fast.
The first: Ukrainians have exhausted their artillery shells and ammunition so much that they do not even bother firing inside the city anymore and instead fire on the Wagner forces on the flank, or evacuated a good chunk of their artillery pieces to Chasiv Yar, which is about 7 miles to the West. But there is a problem with this theory. Most of the major roads have been cut, meaning almost no heavy equipment can go through either because the Wagner/Russians have fire control over the major roads or that smaller dirt roads are so poor in condition, they risk getting stuck in the mud or breaking down.
The second more plausible theory is that Ukraine withdrew all (or most) of their professional units weeks earlier, slowly so no one would notice and instead threw in newer soldiers who were just conscripted weeks earlier. Some of these guys do not even look 18 years old. Some of them look 50+. So it is quite clear that manpower problems are finally starting to hit Ukraine, which of course we knew were coming considering how many losses they’ve taken on this 1 section of the 7 mile front.
But now it seems that the plan has been spoiled since we have videos coming out from Ukrainian soldiers themselves who are on the ground. They say Ukrainian generals have given the order to finally withdraw, it is unclear if some or all of the units will be withdrawn, but the panic has set in.
It seems Russia has taken notice of this and stepped up their attacks farther west, a change of tactics if you will. A youtuber by the name of “HistoryLegends” has laid out this plan and he seems to be proven correct on this assessment. To sum it up, he says Russia will bypass Ivanivske completely and instead close the pocket much closer to Bakhmut. At the same time, Russian and Wagner forces will hit push westwards to Chasiv Yar so the Ukrainians are stalled in making their new line of defense, sending the entire front into chaos. I’ll lay it out on a map so you can visualize it better.
The red arrows represent where the Wagner/Russian forces will attack at the same time. The blue line in Bakhmut represents the encirclement. While the other blue line in Chasiv Yar, farther to the left side represents where the Ukrainians are planning to build their new defensive line. By doing this at the same time, the Russians are attacking not only disorganized units, but a disorganized and unfinished defensive line. 2 birds with 1 stone as some have called it. And to add on top of that, Ukrainian artillery has spent most of its ammuntion, which is the real killer of war, without artillery, a nation not only loses significat ground, but the losses are moumental for the country with a shortage of artillery. In the Bakhmut sector it has been particularly bad for Ukraine, with the artillery being in favor of Russia, 7 to 1, and that number has grown wider in the recent weeks with maybe a 10 to 1 advantage (numbers not seen since the 2nd world war).
My prediction? Cannot really say honestly, it all depends on how many Ukrainian troops are left in Bakhmut, the ammunition question for the UA, morale, etc. If we consider the Ukrainian morale is low, ammunition for artillery is scarce, then maybe 2-3 more weeks and we see Bakhmut fall. But like I’ve said, this war has given us many surprises. Could be next week and we hear Bakhmut fall and 10,000 Ukrainians are taken prisoner, or it could turn into another Mariupol style siege where the defenders last for a month before surrendering, delaying the Russians significantly. It just depends.
