Ukrainian volunteers detailed in comments to The Times how they were unprepared to fight Russian forces near the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast, where the two sides have been locked in heavy battles for months.
The report came after Russia’s Wagner Group said it took Soledar, a small mining town three miles northeast of Bakhmut. Ukrainian volunteers told The Times that they were supposed to hold the line in the area, but they weren’t armed with any of the advanced equipment the US and NATO have been pouring into the country.
“We had our Kalashnikov rifles and a few grenades and that was it,” one volunteer said. “If we had had night-vision goggles, or something like that, we might have been able to see the Russians.” They were ordered to withdraw from the area, and Russia’s capture of Soledar could help Russian forces encircle Bakhmut.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that some Western and Ukrainian officials were worried that Ukraine was sacrificing too many soldiers and resources to hold on to Bakhmut. The report reads: “Western — and some Ukrainian — officials, soldiers and analysts increasingly worry that Kyiv has allowed itself to be sucked into the battle for Bakhmut on Russian terms, losing the forces it needs for a planned spring offensive as it stubbornly clings to a town of limited strategic relevance.”
One Ukrainian commander told the Journal that the casualty rate might not be sustainable. “So far, the exchange rate of trading our lives for theirs favors the Russians. If this goes on like this, we could run out,” he said.
It’s unclear how many casualties there have been in the war, with both sides offering vastly different estimates. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley claimed in November that both Russian and Ukrainian forces have suffered “well over” 100,000 casualties, including both dead and wounded.
Is there no country capable of mediating a peace?
Not with Zelensky alive – he refuses to give up placing NATO missile batteries on the Russian border and that is the reason for every single Ukrainian death since spring. The three Baltic states to his north became NATO members uneventfully by refusing the same missile batteries. I doubt the Ukrainian people care about NATO missile batteries.
I thought about that too. But his death simply means another backup stooge will replace the shadow government as the figurehead.
Zelensky is not running anything. He is a patsy. A very rich patsy, who takes time from “leading” to sit, with his wife, for Vogue shots. If he makes any moves to negotiate and end the war, we will take him out, blame Russia for the assassination.
Ask Putin, he is the one that invaded, illegally annexed Ukrainian land and isn’t planning on returning one inch.
Ask the U.S., it is the country that wags the dog in Kiev. This could have been prevented last December when Russia wanted to negotiate, and again in April of this year, but was shut down by the U.S. with Boris as the messenger to Z. You know very well the pattern of Kiev since 2014.
I would say no. The concept of the ‘nation-state’ able to ‘mediate’ is the root cause of what we see here. Folks (nation-states) demanding to rule others according to arbitrary lines drawn by force or otherwise. Sad to say. I used to be more optimistic, haha.
Numbers are not reliable. What is most telling is reporting coming out from Ukraine for months about reinforcements sent to this defense line. Russia has pulled Ukraine back into the old pattern. Russia’s lines are static, just lines of artillery. , Ukraine has to keep bringing reinforcements which explains Soledar. At some point Ukraine stops defendingva line, and Russian line moves forward into mostly undefended space. What is sad here is the lack of withdrawal communication , so isolated troups are stuck to fight what they think is still an active defense line.
This is why what apoears contrary to reason Zelenski claims that Ukraine forces are still fighting in Soledar. It is just good optics.
This line may be the last line of fortifications that were build up in Donetsk over a period of 8 years. Unless the goal is to buy time to build new fortificatikns and trenches furter towards Slavjansk and Krematorsk. Otherwise, it may be clear sailing for Russia after Bakhmut .
The problem for Ukraine is — nothing positive is happening. The only successes they can claim is two areas where Russia eliminated exposed positiins and shortened its defense line — in Kharkiv and Kherson regions. That was accomplished at the end of last phase — the recognition of 4 Russian speaking areas as part of Russian Federation, This phase preceded the increased mobilization. Now that the mobilized army is ready, the big question remains — what is the next plase?
This time Russia is not sharing. There is absolutely no way to predict, but it is possible that intelligence may have reduced options to possibilities.
Thus nervousnesses about Bakhmut heroics. And need to anticipate future Russian moves and any options for counteroffensive.
Withdrawal means run like h*ll. If a position is not defensible, get out, then regroup or plan another avenue. To continually be chewed up, losing men and equipment is not smart.
Politicians and former actors as military geniuses…
It would be a mistake if Ukrainian military leaders let their extraordinary successes in conventional fighting lead them to commit large forces to defending fixed positions. Russia has an advantage in fixed position warfare. Ukraine’s decisive advantage asymmetric warfare lies in mobile guerrilla type tactics that in the long run will force the Russians to leave.
Whatever the MSM publishes, is geared for more money and weapons for Ukraine–not for peace and the end of killing people. If you’re looking for the truth in the MSM, you’re looking for the truth in all the wrong places. It reminds me of the song, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” (Sarcasm Alert)
I just wonder when we will give Kiev a bunch of MOABs, like the one we dropped in Afghanistan. That would surely set off an escalation by Russia.
Hard to drop something from the ground.
The Ukies could “drop” the MOAB on downtown Kiev and then blame it on the Russians. The MSM would buy it!
“Ukrainian Volunteers Say They Were Unprepared for Battle Around Bakhmut Ukraine has been taking heavy casualties around the city”
Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eye
NATO will fight to the last Ukrainian!
” a town of limited strategic relevance”
That’s the spin put out in leftist media, straight from Zelensky’s spin doctor Arestovych. Because everyone knows Russian Bakhmut will be liberated. Some months ago, they were still saying that Bakhmut was a lynchpin in the second occupation line in western Donbass, after Russia successfully broke the first line.
Bakhmut is essential for communications and transport of U.S. equipment and Ukrainian slave soldiers. Without Bakhmut the rest of the line can’t be equipped. And with Soledar liberated, Bakhmut can be attacked from the north, and encircled. Soledar is also on the “Zelensky line”.
They’ve tried to retake Soledar THREE TIMES with heavy losses, and STILL deny that it’s taken, despite that it happened a week ago. Reportedly the military command in Kiev was at odds with Zelensky, who insisted on the three attempts, and even a fourth. Losing conscripts and equipment every time. Zelensky has no contact with reality and keeps insisting on fantasy maneuvers. He is what the leftist media claim Putin is – Putin, who doesn’t take any part in military decisions and instead leaves it to the experts.
Agree with all except “leftist” media. MSM is pro empire, right, left or center notwithstanding.
The media is not leftist. During the primaries of the last election, MSNBC smeared Sanders and actively supported anti-left pro-corporate pro-war Biden.
Under Trump, BLM was active and getting their messages out, renewable energy made annual gains across the nation, and an agreement to end a war was made.
Under Biden, BLM (and Sanders and the Squad) has been silenced, renewable energy has been decimated by aggressive and successful work by the Biden administration reducing the purchasing of Chinese parts needed for new construction, the war on Adghanistan has been replaced by a war with Russia and hard work attempting to gain a war with China, and sanctions are our newest greatest way to wage economic war on nations around the world.
Under Trump, the US moved to the left. Biden has rolled back all of this, and is moving the US to the ways of his old Senate buddy that was hard right and maximally racist. (Strom Thurmond??? I think that is his name).
Which begs the question: where are all of the new toys we have been giving them?
“Small town” of Soledar. LOL!
“The Ukrainians had the upper hand in the war with Russia in the second half of last year but not every battle can be won, especially when so many of their soldiers are new to conflict.” LOL!
One wonders too just how the Times reporter, obviously embedded with the Ukies, “knows” so much about the status, condition, orders, and so on of the Russian troops. And the characterization of their attacks as “suicidal” just reeks of desperation.
In general, whenever the Russians achieve a strategic objective, we have the following protocol. First off, the Ukies deny it, even after everyone else, including their Western sponsors, admit it. Every city that falls…Mariupol, Sverodonestk, Lysychansk, etc is treated this way. When the Ukies finally do admit defeat, somehow, the city that was so important yesterday is now “strategically irrelevant” or, “a small town.” At the same time, completely BS stories of “Russian war crimes” are trumpeted. Often including blaming the Russians for the destruction of the very cities that the Ukies turned into fortresses, using the civilian population as human shields, and refusing to retreat or surrender. And then there are the stories of “Russian incompetence.” Three Russian soldiers died mishandling ammo. The Russians in the fairy tale in the Times all poured into a house for the Ukies to conveniently slaughter them in, etc. And the Russians have to be dehumanized too, as we see here…as murderers, rapists, convicts, and so on. Finally, there is renewed talk of delivery of even more and better “wonder weapons” to the Ukies.
But, reading between the lines, we see that the Ukies are sending virtually unarmed, untrained, middle aged men to die in the trenches, with Zelenksy playing the role of Hitler at Stalingrad with his (or his NATO/Neo Nazi minders’) “Stand or Die” orders. Mostly, they are dying.
ETA: Funny too how the Russians were supposedly engaged in suicidal human wave attacks, and yet they took the Ukies from the rear! Sounds to me more like the Russians outflanked and surrounded the Ukies rather than charged them head on. Also, it is a racist trope that enemies of the “West” (USSR, PRC, North Korea, etc, and now Russia) routinely use “suicidal human wave” attacks. The “Other” can only beat Our Boys by overwhelming them with numbers and brute force, and without regard to even the lives of their own men, because they are “barbarians,” or even “animals,” unlike Our Boys who win all of their victories through skill and pluck!
Hear hear.