And yet America continues to send materiel, demanding to continue its war on Ukraine to the last Ukrainian ... all for Victoria and Austin and Lockheed and Raytheon and Graham and to hide the corruption of the Biden Crime Family and America’s illegal biowarfare labs.
Has there, ever in history, been such a cynical and existential war to protect the illegalities of the administration of a Great Power, as this totally unnecessary annihilation of human beings to protect the illegitimate and illegally-acting American government?
What about the Russian General Surovikin's stated objective of battles of attrition? In this context, the Russian "strategy" in Bakhmut was to allow the AFU to keep jamming ever more troops in to defend this position - suffering massive casualties due to the enormous firepower disparity.
If Russian strategy is, in fact, to degrade the AFU's capability as opposed to take territory - this would be consistent with Russian tactics in Bakhmut.
With all of the hyperbole surrounding this affair, I consider this piece to be arguably the first real draft of history that I have seen when it comes to discussing the Battle of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk.
Fantastic read Serge, thank you for this much needed insight!!
Firstly you may be light on Russian numbers "committed" to the battle. For example the Wagner group may have had an average strength of 50,000 but to replace losses must have recieved replacements. If it did indeed lose 17,000 KIA then it is likely they lost another 30,000 to 50,000 wounded. So total Wagner losses could over c 300 days exceed its basic strength.
Similarly Russian Army and other forces were involved in the fighting, and rotated in and out. And how do we define "involved". All those artillery units required manpower to observe, fire and resupply - including a longer logistical tail. At what point do these count as fighting in the battle? Similarly airforces.
Taking a big picture view 22,000 KIA might give 90,000 total Russian casualties - or around 300 per day. That does seem high given the reports we recieved at various stages but who really knows.
Now the Chef is known to exaggerate but he produce a tabulated loss of 72,000 UAF KIA - and obviously there were more KIA in other sectors. But say around 75,000 KIA in total (range 60,000 to 90,000) - 200 to 300 per day - plausible. I think that the UAF struggled to evacuate and treat its wounded here, so actual deaths off the battlefield in hospital and medevac might also be higher. The usual KIA to wounded ratios may not apply. But wounded might be another 150,000 - say 500 per day. This would equate to losing around a battalion per day. Total UAF losses using this estimate would be 200,000 to 250,000 or the full complement of maybe 60 brigades. This is more than the force structure listed above - but clearly some units were rotated in and out of the battle several times having been "refitted" and many thousands of individual replacements were fed into units.
These calculations for both sides might appear high and certainly there were periods where fighting was more and also less intense. And the battle went on long enough for some wounded to recover and return to action.
However my conclusion is that overall the UAF lost around 2 to 3 times the losses of the various Russian forces - maybe more. However the UAF gutted around a third of its army and probably lost much popular support for sending impressed troops into a fire trap. This amounts to a serious but not in my view fatal defeat - there are plenty of UAF forces left. Nevertheless permanent losses (KIA, MIA and WIA who cannot be patched up) for the Russians might be 40,000, for the UAF maybe 100,000 to 150,000. Serious losses for both sides, but especially for the UAF who it seems rarely have more than 300,000 in the field army at any time.
Also according to Ben Wallace: "we have seen reality, which is that we are all running out” of weapons and equipment that can be donated."
The UK and other nations are increasingly having to purchase arms on the international market for Ukraine, as opposed to tapping into their existing stockpiles, the official explained.
Very good summary of what I saw occur since following the event from last summer. I thought the city would fall by year end, but I clearly did not understand the difficulties on the ground, nor that the Ukrainians would be prepared to lose so much blood and treasure (military hardware) to hold the city.
I keep wishing the Russians would just get this over with to minimize the lost and damaged lives, but I realize now that the Russians are making Ukraine (and the West) pay a terrible and high price for this needsess war.
I don't fault Ukraine for its initial regrouping at Bakhmut, but Ukraine continued with it long after it was clear that Bakhmut was being lost and Ukraine was unnecessarily losing troops. It seems the only thing Ukraine achieved was delaying Russia's conquest.
Now, if this allowed Ukraine to build up forces for a grand counterattack or something, great. But it appears it gained nothing but more time to loot the country and steal aid
Russia have cleverly been using Bakhmut to tie up and destroy tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops and equipment.
Russia deliberately ignores major territorial gain for a war of attrition via their superior artillery which is decimating the hapless Ukrainians in this proxy war by Nato against Russia.
Small numbered Russian attacking forces are making incremental gains to entice Ukraine to send in more troops to reinforce their defensive lines in places like Bakhmut and to replace the tens of thousands that have been killed particularly by Russian artillery.
This is a deliberate ploy to kill as many Ukrainian and mercenary troops as possible and destroy as much Nato heavy military equipment as possible and is in line with the main stated aim of the SMO to “demilitarize” and “deNazify” Ukraine.
To emphasize this, here is a statement from Evgeny Prigozhin head of Wagner PMC in November 2022.
"Our task is not Bakhmut himself, but the destruction of the Ukrainian army and the reduction of its combat potential".
On May 6th 2023 he also said ……
“95% of Bakhmut is now under Russian control, remaining 5% does not affect course of Special Operation; Goal was not city's capture but to overwhelm and grind Ukrainian troops, to give Russian army breathing space and restore combat capability.
Ukraine lost 50,000 kia or missing defending Bakhmut”.
Great write up man. It's all such a shame Slavs killing Slavs. I wish what is left of the Ukrainian population wake up to the fact that they are dying for foreign interests. Decarbonizing the economy as it were.
A remarkable analysis, as usual. Big Serge, you're beacon of method and reason in an ocean of propaganda. I can't thank you enough for this. At a personal level, I greatly enjoy learning from your analysis methodology.
.
When Prigozhin was giving speeches in prison yards to find recruits, the word from Western media was that Russia was so inept that they had no better way to fight this war than to refill their decimated forces with untrained brutal criminals. A year later, the rationale behind the mass recruitment of convicts seems quite clear. It wasn't just about finding canon fodder that no one would care about, although this had its advantages from the political perspective. It wasn't about refilling forces in a hurry, although this also was useful. It was not about drastically increasing forces either. It was about gaining time to organise and train a proper military power for when Ukraine's ability to resist had been depleted. And now I can't help but recall the recent words of a Russian diplomat about how Russia has not yet started to fight this war seriously...
.
Now that Ukraine forces have no reserve pool left for the future, Russia will safely keep its defensive posture to withstand the offensive to come. And maybe, if the Ukrainian offensive is defeated efficiently, we'll then see a massive and rapid surge in regular Russian army forces, made of well trained guys who volunteered for this, equipped more than sufficiently, to launch an effort meant at sweeping across large portions of Ukrainian territory. And then, who knows where the Russians would be willing to stop? Odessa, Kharkiv, maybe Kiev or the Moldovan border!
It might just be that Russians were in fact much more clever than any official Western voice would only have thought possible in their nightmares, and that they had assessed Ukraine's power and planned for those developments more than a year in advance...
.
NATO and the EU will be forced to regret their arrogance. If really Russia has put the last year to use to grow a power in reserve, and if they prove capable to conquer larger bits of Ukraine after withstanding a Ukrainian offensive, I can't see how they'd accept to sit at any negotiation table in the Autumn, as several European leaders have started hinting. They'll move forward as much as they like, and this whole sad story will end with an unconditional capitulation from Ukraine.
I believe the Khornate reference at the very end sums it all up quite nicely. Skulls for the Skull Throne, indeed. And there really are enough daemons among us, right here on Terra, who really don't care whose blood flows, only that it flows, and flows, and flows...
I would not assume that Russia lost just cannon fodder. Those squads of convicts has to be led too and the Russians are already very short on sergeants due to their officer bloat and then the restructuring to copy Western militaries.
If they managed to preserve their blooded veterans to train up the rest of their forces then it will be a win in the end. But we really have no way of knowing if the MoD is willing to learn from Wagner
As for Ukraine, it's a weird military fighting a war of national suicide and I have no method to judge them. They probably lost a lot of their offensive potential, but the "Big Ukrainian Offensive" was always a terrible idea anyway. Their best move was to try and negotiate peace after taking kharkiv. NATO is getting too much value out of this war though and will keep it running as long as they can no matter the cost to Ukraine.
I was shocked to read the life expectancy of the Ukrainian on the front is four hours. This compares unfavorably to the fifteen hours an Imperial Guardsman is expected to last against Orks. The Ukrainians often derisively refer to Russians as orcs, but no, these are not orcs, but Orks, particularly brutal and cunning and Orky Orks.
Sorry for that, but you opened the door with your last line. WAAAGH
And yet America continues to send materiel, demanding to continue its war on Ukraine to the last Ukrainian ... all for Victoria and Austin and Lockheed and Raytheon and Graham and to hide the corruption of the Biden Crime Family and America’s illegal biowarfare labs.
Has there, ever in history, been such a cynical and existential war to protect the illegalities of the administration of a Great Power, as this totally unnecessary annihilation of human beings to protect the illegitimate and illegally-acting American government?
Serge,
What about the Russian General Surovikin's stated objective of battles of attrition? In this context, the Russian "strategy" in Bakhmut was to allow the AFU to keep jamming ever more troops in to defend this position - suffering massive casualties due to the enormous firepower disparity.
If Russian strategy is, in fact, to degrade the AFU's capability as opposed to take territory - this would be consistent with Russian tactics in Bakhmut.
With all of the hyperbole surrounding this affair, I consider this piece to be arguably the first real draft of history that I have seen when it comes to discussing the Battle of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk.
Fantastic read Serge, thank you for this much needed insight!!
Thanks for a very detailed anlysis.
A couple of observations.
Firstly you may be light on Russian numbers "committed" to the battle. For example the Wagner group may have had an average strength of 50,000 but to replace losses must have recieved replacements. If it did indeed lose 17,000 KIA then it is likely they lost another 30,000 to 50,000 wounded. So total Wagner losses could over c 300 days exceed its basic strength.
Similarly Russian Army and other forces were involved in the fighting, and rotated in and out. And how do we define "involved". All those artillery units required manpower to observe, fire and resupply - including a longer logistical tail. At what point do these count as fighting in the battle? Similarly airforces.
Taking a big picture view 22,000 KIA might give 90,000 total Russian casualties - or around 300 per day. That does seem high given the reports we recieved at various stages but who really knows.
Now the Chef is known to exaggerate but he produce a tabulated loss of 72,000 UAF KIA - and obviously there were more KIA in other sectors. But say around 75,000 KIA in total (range 60,000 to 90,000) - 200 to 300 per day - plausible. I think that the UAF struggled to evacuate and treat its wounded here, so actual deaths off the battlefield in hospital and medevac might also be higher. The usual KIA to wounded ratios may not apply. But wounded might be another 150,000 - say 500 per day. This would equate to losing around a battalion per day. Total UAF losses using this estimate would be 200,000 to 250,000 or the full complement of maybe 60 brigades. This is more than the force structure listed above - but clearly some units were rotated in and out of the battle several times having been "refitted" and many thousands of individual replacements were fed into units.
These calculations for both sides might appear high and certainly there were periods where fighting was more and also less intense. And the battle went on long enough for some wounded to recover and return to action.
However my conclusion is that overall the UAF lost around 2 to 3 times the losses of the various Russian forces - maybe more. However the UAF gutted around a third of its army and probably lost much popular support for sending impressed troops into a fire trap. This amounts to a serious but not in my view fatal defeat - there are plenty of UAF forces left. Nevertheless permanent losses (KIA, MIA and WIA who cannot be patched up) for the Russians might be 40,000, for the UAF maybe 100,000 to 150,000. Serious losses for both sides, but especially for the UAF who it seems rarely have more than 300,000 in the field army at any time.
Excellent exposition. Should be on the front page of every major newspaper around the world.
Bakhmut broke NATO.
According to Jens Stoltenberg NATO's ammunition stocks are exhausted.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-02/nato-chief-urges-allies-to-sign-defense-deals-to-boost-output
Also according to Ben Wallace: "we have seen reality, which is that we are all running out” of weapons and equipment that can be donated."
The UK and other nations are increasingly having to purchase arms on the international market for Ukraine, as opposed to tapping into their existing stockpiles, the official explained.
https://www.rt.com/news/577366-ben-wallace-west-running-out-weapons/
Ground well covered by the likes of McGregor and Ritter but without this premium detail. Big Serge remains the Biblical authority..
Very good summary of what I saw occur since following the event from last summer. I thought the city would fall by year end, but I clearly did not understand the difficulties on the ground, nor that the Ukrainians would be prepared to lose so much blood and treasure (military hardware) to hold the city.
I keep wishing the Russians would just get this over with to minimize the lost and damaged lives, but I realize now that the Russians are making Ukraine (and the West) pay a terrible and high price for this needsess war.
I don't fault Ukraine for its initial regrouping at Bakhmut, but Ukraine continued with it long after it was clear that Bakhmut was being lost and Ukraine was unnecessarily losing troops. It seems the only thing Ukraine achieved was delaying Russia's conquest.
Now, if this allowed Ukraine to build up forces for a grand counterattack or something, great. But it appears it gained nothing but more time to loot the country and steal aid
Russia have cleverly been using Bakhmut to tie up and destroy tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops and equipment.
Russia deliberately ignores major territorial gain for a war of attrition via their superior artillery which is decimating the hapless Ukrainians in this proxy war by Nato against Russia.
Small numbered Russian attacking forces are making incremental gains to entice Ukraine to send in more troops to reinforce their defensive lines in places like Bakhmut and to replace the tens of thousands that have been killed particularly by Russian artillery.
This is a deliberate ploy to kill as many Ukrainian and mercenary troops as possible and destroy as much Nato heavy military equipment as possible and is in line with the main stated aim of the SMO to “demilitarize” and “deNazify” Ukraine.
To emphasize this, here is a statement from Evgeny Prigozhin head of Wagner PMC in November 2022.
"Our task is not Bakhmut himself, but the destruction of the Ukrainian army and the reduction of its combat potential".
On May 6th 2023 he also said ……
“95% of Bakhmut is now under Russian control, remaining 5% does not affect course of Special Operation; Goal was not city's capture but to overwhelm and grind Ukrainian troops, to give Russian army breathing space and restore combat capability.
Ukraine lost 50,000 kia or missing defending Bakhmut”.
120,000 were wounded.
Great write up man. It's all such a shame Slavs killing Slavs. I wish what is left of the Ukrainian population wake up to the fact that they are dying for foreign interests. Decarbonizing the economy as it were.
A remarkable analysis, as usual. Big Serge, you're beacon of method and reason in an ocean of propaganda. I can't thank you enough for this. At a personal level, I greatly enjoy learning from your analysis methodology.
.
When Prigozhin was giving speeches in prison yards to find recruits, the word from Western media was that Russia was so inept that they had no better way to fight this war than to refill their decimated forces with untrained brutal criminals. A year later, the rationale behind the mass recruitment of convicts seems quite clear. It wasn't just about finding canon fodder that no one would care about, although this had its advantages from the political perspective. It wasn't about refilling forces in a hurry, although this also was useful. It was not about drastically increasing forces either. It was about gaining time to organise and train a proper military power for when Ukraine's ability to resist had been depleted. And now I can't help but recall the recent words of a Russian diplomat about how Russia has not yet started to fight this war seriously...
.
Now that Ukraine forces have no reserve pool left for the future, Russia will safely keep its defensive posture to withstand the offensive to come. And maybe, if the Ukrainian offensive is defeated efficiently, we'll then see a massive and rapid surge in regular Russian army forces, made of well trained guys who volunteered for this, equipped more than sufficiently, to launch an effort meant at sweeping across large portions of Ukrainian territory. And then, who knows where the Russians would be willing to stop? Odessa, Kharkiv, maybe Kiev or the Moldovan border!
It might just be that Russians were in fact much more clever than any official Western voice would only have thought possible in their nightmares, and that they had assessed Ukraine's power and planned for those developments more than a year in advance...
.
NATO and the EU will be forced to regret their arrogance. If really Russia has put the last year to use to grow a power in reserve, and if they prove capable to conquer larger bits of Ukraine after withstanding a Ukrainian offensive, I can't see how they'd accept to sit at any negotiation table in the Autumn, as several European leaders have started hinting. They'll move forward as much as they like, and this whole sad story will end with an unconditional capitulation from Ukraine.
I believe the Khornate reference at the very end sums it all up quite nicely. Skulls for the Skull Throne, indeed. And there really are enough daemons among us, right here on Terra, who really don't care whose blood flows, only that it flows, and flows, and flows...
I would not assume that Russia lost just cannon fodder. Those squads of convicts has to be led too and the Russians are already very short on sergeants due to their officer bloat and then the restructuring to copy Western militaries.
If they managed to preserve their blooded veterans to train up the rest of their forces then it will be a win in the end. But we really have no way of knowing if the MoD is willing to learn from Wagner
As for Ukraine, it's a weird military fighting a war of national suicide and I have no method to judge them. They probably lost a lot of their offensive potential, but the "Big Ukrainian Offensive" was always a terrible idea anyway. Their best move was to try and negotiate peace after taking kharkiv. NATO is getting too much value out of this war though and will keep it running as long as they can no matter the cost to Ukraine.
"Was it all just blood for the blood god?"
I was shocked to read the life expectancy of the Ukrainian on the front is four hours. This compares unfavorably to the fifteen hours an Imperial Guardsman is expected to last against Orks. The Ukrainians often derisively refer to Russians as orcs, but no, these are not orcs, but Orks, particularly brutal and cunning and Orky Orks.
Sorry for that, but you opened the door with your last line. WAAAGH
It's Artemovsk now.