The Ukrainian army has announced that it has reconquered part of Bakhmut, the small city in the east of the country which has been at the center of a bloody battle between Ukraine and Russia for more than nine months, and that it has pushed Russian soldiers back 2 km in the southwestern outskirts of the city. It is the first recapture by the Ukrainian army of Bakhmut and it is remarkable above all because it took Russia months to occupy those areas, advancing even a few meters every day.
Bakhmut is a city that does not have a great military value in the war: it is located on the road that leads to the most important Ukrainian cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and therefore it is an obligatory passage if the Russian army wants to advance, but other than that there are particular reasons why its conquest would be important. But the attempts to conquer it and the strenuous defense by the Ukrainian army took on a great deal of symbolic and political value, and over time Bakhmut ended up becoming one of the main targets of the war in the Ukrainian east, for both armies.
For months Russia made small but steady progress in encroaching on the city, until it was almost completely encircled. However, the Ukrainian army continued to fight instead of implementing a strategic retreat as has already happened on other occasions. According to the forecasts of some analysts, Russia would have wanted to conquer Bakhmut by May 9, the day on which every year the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War is remembered and celebrated in the country. However, things didn’t go as planned.
In recent weeks, the Wagner group, a Russian company made up of mercenaries that manages a large part of Russia’s military operations in Bakhmut, had repeatedly complained of a shortage of ammunition. The head of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had also threatened to withdraw his men by May 10, criticizing the Defense Ministry and the Russian army leaders very harshly for not having adequately supported the mercenaries. After a few days, however, he had partially denied his words, saying that he had received a first load of ammunition.
Prigozhin Tuesday he also accused the 72nd Motorized Brigade of the Russian Army to have escaped from Bakhmut, leaving the Wagner Group alone to fight in the city. At present, however, there is no independent corroboration of Prigozhin’s allegations, and he is known for making often baseless inflammatory comments.