From the euphoria for the imminent victory, to the fear of losing everything. This is how the battle of Bakhmut, the longest and bloodiest of the Ukrainian war, influences the mood of the Russian troops fighting on the front line, who are none other than the mercenaries of the Wagner Group. His boss, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, asked Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for help on Monday in the face of an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive. From the Ukrainian side they maintained yesterday that the Russian attacks to conquer Bakhmut are running out of steam and, coinciding with Prigozhin, they announced that their counterattack would take place “very soon”.
Ukrainian troops have been on the defensive this winter and now seem ready to change tactics. The Russian attacks “are running out of steam and running out of momentum. Very soon we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupiansk,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian land forces, said yesterday, citing the counter-offensives with which they managed to recover previously lost territories.
The decline in the intensity of Russian actions could be explained by the increase in operations in other areas. But it would be surprising if they put a stop to the campaign to take Bakhmut, a city that in Russia is called Artiomovsk and that has become a symbol. Seizing this stronghold would give them a blow to morale and the only major victory in months. In addition, it would open the way for further progress in the Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.
Last Monday Prigozhin published a letter that he had sent to Minister Shoigu warning him of an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive between the end of March and the beginning of April to “break the flanks” and cut off contact between Wagner’s paramilitaries and the rest of the Russian troops. And he asked the minister “to take the necessary measures” to avoid it.
In months past, Prigozhin has not been shy about openly criticizing military commanders, either for battlefield strategy or because his men were not getting enough ammunition.
According to the tycoon, nicknamed “the Kremlin cook” for his catering company’s contracts with the Russian presidency, Wagner “controls 70% of Bakhmut.”
At the end of February, Ukraine was considering the possibility of starting a controlled withdrawal from the city. But in the end he decided to reinforce the defenses and hold the positions in order to inflict as many casualties as possible on the enemy. Kyiv believes that the attrition suffered by the Russians is greater than their own.
In a gesture to infuse morale into his troops Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was on Wednesday in Bajmut and yesterday Thursday visited the Jershon region, an area that Kyiv recaptured in the autumn. “We will rebuild it all. And the same with all the towns and cities that have suffered because of the occupiers,” he wrote on social media.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also visited sensitive locations in this conflict last week. Coinciding with the ninth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, he was in Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet; and then in Mariupol, the city of Donetsk taken over by Russia in May 2022. He made this trip one day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him of illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. Moscow denies it and assures that its value is “null”, since Russia is not a signatory to the Treaty of Rome, the founding pact of the Court.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday that if a country detains Putin it would be a declaration of war against Russia.
Despite this order, next August Putin could travel to South Africa, a country that is a signatory to the Treaty of Rome. His foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, confirmed yesterday that her government had extended an invitation to the Russian leader for the BRICS summit in Durban. According to Efe, Pandor admitted that the ICC order “is cause for concern” and referred to “a discussion” in the South African government “to decide how we will act.”
