Battle of Bakhmut

Bakhmut defenders.

The Battle of Bakhmut was one of two principal engagements arising in the first year of the Russian Special Military Operation on the territory of Ukraine in 2022. The other being the Battle of Mariupol.

The small town of Bakhmut (pop. 70,000) was fortified by the Zelensky regime at NATO's direction. NATO tactics were developed for insurgent warfare in the Middle East and Afghanistan, but proved catastrophic in large-scale industrial warfare. NATO/Ukraine kept feeding more and more forces into the open cauldron of the Bakhmut meat grinder. And not just the Ukrainian Territorial Defense, who were ill-trained and ill-equipped for combat, but also NATO military contractors. Newsweek magazine finally admitted that the much vaunted HIMAR systems, M777 Howitzers and other sophisticated weapons were operated by Western alliance contractors. NATO troops resigned their commissions with the NATO Army they had been serving in, typically the United States, Poland, Romania, the UK, Canada and others, immediately signed a contract with a private military company paid by NATO, the Zelensky regime, and the U.S. Congress, and then donned Ukrainian uniforms.

The Wunderwaffe provided by the United States and NATO take months to learn how to operate properly. The Zelensky regime didn't have months to train AFU forces to use these weapons. NATO casualties in Bakhmut began to stack up, and NATO could no longer hide it. Poland was the first to reveal how many troops were lost, and the number of NATO deaths and casualties grew throughout the winter campaign. NATO played into Russian hands, helping Russia with it overall stated aims from the beginning - to demilitarize Ukraine, which was becoming expanded to the de-NATOization of Europe.

Summer campaign - the Bakhmut-Soledar front

See also: 2022 Special Military Operation in Ukraine - Donbas cauldron#Bakhmut-Soledar front

The battle for Severodonetsk-Lysychansk metropolitan area ended with the victory of Russian-led forces. AFU forces suffered about 7,000 casualties in the Battle of Severodonetsk-Lysychansk. The front line of Bakhmut/Artemovsk – Soledar-Seversk, also known as the Zelensky Line, became the new hotspot. On June 28, 2022 it was reported that the Ukrainians had amassed about 20,000 troops which had been withdrawn from several surrounding fronts around the town of Siversk (pop. 10,000) in the Northern Donetsk Republic, between Izium and Lysychansk. Another 20,000 were reported around the Bakhmut fortress. Bakhmut is a crossroads of multiple roads and rail lines and sits on high ground.

On August 1, 2022 Russian forces were reported to have entered the outskirts of Bakhmut (Russian: Artemovsk; pop. 72,000). The Ukrainian bunkers built around Bakhmut were likened to North Korean DMZ bunkers. Ukrainian soldiers occupying Bakhmut reported that civilians in the city were anxious to fly the Russian flag.

On August 2, 2022 the Russians destroyed 130 members of the 58th mechanized brigade, and 70 members deserted and were arrested by Ukrainian forces.

On August 4, 2022 fighting was reported in the city of Bakhmut. With the Russian breakthroughs, the entire Ukrainian frontline began collapsing from Siversk to Soledar.

On August 6, 2022 Ukrainian forces were reported as destroying bridges in Bakhmut to slow the Russian advance.

On August 11, 2022 fighting in Bakhmut and Soledar was reported as some of the heaviest along the front. Russian and allied forces entered the industrial areas of these two cities first. Soledar has one of the largest salt mines in the world, which Ukrainian forces retreated into.

On August 13, 2922 the Russian MOD reported the destruction of the 7th of 16 HIMARs the U.S. sent to Ukraine.

The advance in Bakhmut was slowed because the city was heavily mined with illegal mines under international conventions of French manufacture.

On August 17, the Russian surge toward Bakhmut continued from the north and south. In Siversk, the Siversk cauldron was forming up.

On August 19, 2022 fighting was reported in the center of Soledar.

On August 25, 2022 a Ukrainian counterattack in Bakhmut, where Ukrainians existed in large numbers, failed.

On September 19, 2022 the Russian MOD reported that "During the fighting in the area of the village of Zaitseve of the Donetsk People's Republic, the 24th battalion of the National Formation "Aidar"* of the 53rd mechanized brigade lost more than half of the personnel." Fighting was reported on the eastern portion, inside the city of Bakhmut.

By September 24, 2022 Ukrainian forces began destroying the bridges in Bakhmut.

The Wagner Line, October 25, 2022

On September 27, 2022 the Wagner group entered the settlement of Zaitseve.

By October 6, 2022 NATO/Ukraine had amassed about 30,000 forces around Bakhmut.

On October 10, 2022 unified Russians forces recaptured the village of Spirne.

According to LPR Gen. Viktor Vololatski, by mid-October 2022, 80% of the forces on Soledar-Bakhmut front were NATO and mercenaries, the bulk from former Warsaw Pact countries with Ukrainians constituting only 20% of the force. The Wagner group continued making progress into the city of Bakhmut.

On October 18, 2022 the Russian MOD reported the destruction of three US-made AN/TPQ-37 and AN/TPQ-50 mobile missile radar finder systems in the areas of Bakhmut, Vyemka and Soledar.

On November 25, 2022 the Ukrainians lost 60 troops and 5 armoured vehicles. The AFU 58th Mechanized Brigade refused to fight.

On November 27, 2022 reports indicated that hospitals in Bakhmut were full with over 500 Ukrainian wounded and no chance to evacuate them. AT Chasiv Yar (pop. 12,000) slightly to the west of Bakhmut, the Russians killed 100 NATO forces and destroyed 6 armored vehicles.

By the first week of December 2022 Ukraine/NATO was losing approximately a battalion per day in Bakhmut. The head of the Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that the Russians have the task of destroying the Ukrainian army and reducing its combat potential but not storming the city. Daily total losses for the Kiev regime from November 10, 2022 to December 10, 2022 averaged 800 dead for a combined total of 24,000, or the equivalent of 6 to 7 NATO brigades. The German army as of 2022 had only 8 brigades. Joe Biden and the EU gambled that Russia would fold in two months, by April 2022, with Russia sanctions. However, by December 2022 it became apparent that NATO was not prepared for war it provoked with Russia.

Winter campaign - the Bakhmut meatgrinder

Disposition of NATO/Ukraine artillery (in blue), December 2, 2022.

In late November 2022 Russian troops went back on the offensive in several directions. The offensive of the Wagner Group continued in Bakhmut and on its outskirts, where the Ukrainian group risked being surrounded. A section of the railway line was cut.

Ukrainian soldiers would try to keep warm in their bunkers and trenches. When they lit a fire to cook or keep warm, the smoke was spotted by drones directing artillery fire and the NATO/Ukraine forces were immediately killed. The soldiers suffered from maladies long thought to have ended with World War I, like trench foot. While in a defensive posture for a prolonged period of time and unable to leave the trench because of constant artillery shelling, the soldiers typically dispose of human waste on the trench floor. The trenches fill up with water from rain and snow, which gets into the soldiers' feet. The soldiers' feet literally rot in the trenches. Below freezing temperatures causes frostbite in the extremities, then infection and the loss of limbs.

Ukrainian units again attempted a counteroffensive in the area of Opytnoe on the southern outskirts of Bakhmut. The Wagner fighters repelled the attack, forcing the enemy to retreat with losses. Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, which are a mixture of various units, including groups of NATO mercenaries, suffered heavy losses. According to Ukrainian and Western sources, the Ukrainian Army was losing hundreds of fighters killed and wounded daily. Troops from other units were sent to plug the holes in the defense lines.

Just as Hitler did during the Second World War, Zelensky ordered that there be no Ukrainian retreat from the town, this meaning that there is no solution to a hopeless situation for the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian officers ensured that by blowing a bridge their soldiers cannot retreat.

NATO cemetery in Poland.

On December 9, 2022 it was reported that the Polish newspaper NDP (Independent Political Journal) believes without the support of NATO, the fighting in Ukraine would end within a week. NDP reported daily losses of the AFU near Bakhmut reach battalion size, 500 to 800 soldiers daily; hospitals in the city of Konstantinovka are overcrowded. LPR officials claim that Ukraine is transferring up to 500 men per day to Bakhmut to replenish losses. Even Kiev regime chief propagandist Alexei Arestovych admitted that Russian artillery strength in the sector has a 9 to 1 advantage. Bakhmut was becoming the largest and most costly battle of the war for Ukraine. Newsweek spoke with 'former' U.S. Colonel Andrew Milburn who, together with 'volunteers', trains Ukrainian soldiers: "They've been taking extraordinarily high casualties," Milburn said of the units training with the American Mozart PMC. "The numbers you are reading in the media about 70 percent and above casualties being routine are not exaggerated." A unit with 50% casualties is usually no longer able to fight and withdrawn from combat. But Zelensky leaves the units on the frontline until nearly nobody is left in them.

Medical evacuation from the frontline trenches was extremely difficult. Most wounded just died there. The equipment they used is mostly lost with them.

See also

• NATO war in Ukraine