Can Russia break Bakhmut? Putin wasted 6000 lives in two weeks trying

Russian weaknesses have been exposed all throughout their disastrous war against the Ukrainian people but there are a few examples more poignant than the casualty numbers coming out of the Bakhmut front for the Russian Armed Forces. 

Vladimir Putin has lost over 6000 troops killed in action in just two weeks on the war's most bloody front, adding to the growing Russian casualty numbers once thought impossible in modern conventional warfare. 

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced on November 30th that the Russian military had lost roughly 88,800 troops since the war began on February 24th. 

In addition to losing thousands of troops around Bakhmut, Russian forces have also lost a significant number of assault vehicles and fixed artillery units. 

Ukraine’s General Staff estimated the losses to be 43 tanks, 75 armored personnel vehicles, and 69 other military vehicles of various categories. 

Bakhmut has become a symbol for both sides after nearly ten months of brutal warfare and it is unlikely that the fighting for the city will de-escalate this winter. 

For Russian leadership, Bakhmut is the last major obstacle laying between Russia and capturing the rest of Donetsk Oblast. 

Bakhmut is also a major supply center for Ukrainian forces that supply most of the eastern front and guards the pathways into central Ukraine. 

Prior to the Russian invasion, Bakhmut was home to 70,000 Ukrainians and was known as a major transportation hub that had most of Ukraine’s major highways intersecting through it according to research by CBC journalist Chris Brown.  

“Taking Bakhmut would rupture Ukraine's supply lines and open a route for Russian forces to press on toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk,” wrote Inna Varenytsia and Sam Mednick of the Associated Press, “key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk province.”

“Pro-Moscow separatists have controlled part of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province since 2014,” Varenytsia and Mednick continued, and they also noted that finishing their conquest of the region is a key Russia in the current war plan. 

For Russia, losing in Bakhmut is not an option but they may not have a choice. Ukraine has mounted a heroic defense of the area and the country’s General Staff has been pouring in troops since the fall of Kherson. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the number of Ukrainian casualties is concerning and indicated that the situation in Bakhmut is grim during a recent address to the Ukrainian people. 

"The situation on the front line is difficult. Despite extremely large losses, the occupiers are still trying to advance on the Donetsk region," Zelensky said.

The quagmire in Bakhmut has also consumed the city and reduced its center and surrounding areas to rubble and trench lines reminiscent of World War I. 

"It reminds me of a situation in the First World War," retired Ukrainian colonel Serhiy Grabskiy told CBC journalist Chris Brown. 

In Brown's reporting on the situation, he noted that "the fields and villages surrounding Bakhmut [were] pockmarked and littered with foxholes and shivering soldiers on both sides," something that reveals the true horror of what soldiers on the frontline are facing. 

In recent days videos have also emerged of Ukrainian soldiers dealing with flooded trenches stretching dozens of kilometers. 

Yet despite the difficulty, Ukrainian troops are holding strong and defending against the worst assaults the front has seen since the Russians controlled the initiative of the war.

While Russia has made progress and currently controls most of the territory surrounding Bakhmut, the administrator of the Ukrainian-held portion of the area, Pavlo Kyrylenko, has noted that Russian troops would not advance much further. 

“The situation is under control,” Kyrylenko recently told journalists during a briefing on November 30th. So we should expect even more Russian casualties as they continue their assault on Bakhmut.