Ukraine sent untrained recruits into the battle of Bakhmut to save its professional soldiers for an expected counteroffensive, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder, just a few days after being mobilized.
Out of 16 men in the group of draftees, 11 were either killed or captured. The Journal described them as “mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital.”
Some of the men had military training years or decades ago, but none had combat experience. A few of them threatened to refuse orders when they were told they were being sent to the frontlines on February 21, citing a lack of training, but they ultimately went.
One man, Vladyslav Yudin, told the Journal that he told a sergeant major that he had never fired or even held a gun before. “Bakhmut will teach you,” Yudin was told.
The men participated in brutal house-to-house combat in Bakhmut. Many of them are presumed dead, but their families are still holding out hope that they were captured by the Russians and are still alive.
The men’s accounts match what Ukrainians fighting on the frontlines had been telling the media while the battle was still raging. They told stories of troops being sent in with little support, training, or ammunition.
The Washington Post spoke to a Ukrainian battalion commander in March who said he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound.
Despite Kyiv’s Western backers advising against expending resources on Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to hold onto the city for as long as he could, but it was fully captured by the Wagner Group and Russian forces this past weekend.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin estimated that 50,000 Ukrainians lost their lives fighting for the city, but the number is not confirmed. Prigozhin also said that he recruited 50,000 people from prison to fight in Bakhmut and about 20% of them were killed.
They also sent Navy Seals and Green Berets, ended the same…
At least they have a scapegoat Zelensky whom to blame.
The story I heard (including here) was that Z ignored the advice of military experts in both Ukraine and D.C to withdraw from Bakhmut before it was operationally encircled. That decision probably cost the lives of several thousand of his own soldiers, without advancing/benefitting any objectives for the counter-offensive (as far as I can tell).
I heard a story (including here) that Ukrainians exploded Nord Stream.
My comment was a bit awkward. I was trying to acknowledge that Dave DeCamp had mentioned the idea in the main post.
It’s gotten very difficult to know what to believe. I do think that Z was told to pull out of Bakhmut several weeks ago. But I can’t produce a document to prove it.
The same is true of the NordSream bombing. I’m nearly certain that it was done by the US Navy. But, lacking proof, I rely on Sy Hersch’s reputation as a journalist.
Zelensky is completely dependent upon American financial support. Neither he, no any one else in Kiev can decide anything important without American approval. If there was a disagreement about whether to send more and more fresh troops in Bakhmut or retreat, it was a disagreement among Americans. It looks, there are no consensus in US leadership what to do in Ukraine. I mean, they agree that they should finance that war further but there are no agreement how to handle the situation. It was important for them to keep Bakhmut for convincing the sponsors that Ukraine/NATO army doing not so bad. They also talked so much about the “counteroffensive” in order to convince all those who are responsible for the financing the war that if they invest more money in the project, they will somehow defeat Russia.
If there was a rational/plausible objective for hanging on in Bakhmut for as long as possible, it was just that: “As long as possible.” Buying time for other things, and tying down Russian troops which couldn’t be held elsewhere.
IMO, any “counter-offensive” talk is probably smoke and mirrors. The best the Ukrainians can hope to do is force the Russians to concentrate nearly exclusively on securing Donetsk/Luhansk such that Putin will be overjoyed to declare “victory” and pull his teat out of the wringer elsewhere once that’s accomplished.
The information being put forth is that Ukraine has up to 12 brigades kitted out and ready to go…somewhere. It’s anyone’s guess where and the speculation is rampant. Weather is supposed to be consistently better in June. We’ll know then.
You think Putin declaring victory will put an end to Ukrainian fanaticism? As much as he’d like to settle this at the table and be done with it that simply isn’t in the cards. He knows there is only one kind of victory that will ensure peace on the borderlands, and that’s push them onto NATO’s turf – or under it.
“You think Putin declaring victory will put an end to Ukrainian fanaticism?”
Of course not.
Putin “knowing” that he has to “push them onto NATO’s turf – or under it” to get the outcome he’d like is irrelevant, since he’s spent the last 15 months proving beyond reasonable doubt that he has no chance whatsoever of accomplishing such a thing.
The only one beyond reason is you.
Happy Memorial Day, Sarge. 🇺🇸
Thanks. Not a holiday I participate in. I’m generally against glorification of the military and military “service,” let alone turning every damn holiday into an opportunity to do that. Civilians don’t owe military/veterans “respect” — military/veterans owe civilians apologies. Even November 11 I celebrate as Armistice Day, not Veterans Day.
Yes, I figured… Notice how I didn’t “thank you for your service”.
Peace ☮️
You think Putin declaring victory will put an end to Ukrainian fanaticism? As much as he’d like to settle this at the table and be done with it that simply isn’t in the cards. He knows there is only one kind of victory that will ensure peace on the borderlands, and that’s push them onto NATO’s turf – or under it.
The Wagner troops were the tip of the spear, conducting an offensive in the geographically, militarily, and politically central front of the war. It is silly to say that they were “tied down” doing so. This, the Donbass region, is the territory that Russia most wants to take. Indeed, it has already officially annexed it. Your “analysis” would be like saying that Grant’s forces were “tied down” in Virginia, when they were fighting the battles of 1864.
Possibly, the Ukies were buying time. But time is against them. More likely, the Ukies believe that any significant defeats jeopardize their Western backing. Particularly “soft,” tactical retreats that can not only be seen as defeats, but also as evidence that their overall resistance is crumbling. IOW, morale and PR reasons were probably dictating Zelensky’s decision to fight yet another scorched Earth, ultimately unsuccessful, urban defense.
This is the pattern that the war has now settled into. The Russians slowly but surely flank, surround, and take the cities, which are destroyed in the process. The Ukies fight mostly in defense of those cities, but with occasional distractions involving peripheral areas, and, even more numerously, obviously pointless pinprick attacks against various Russian interests that amount to nothing, not only strategically and tactically, but even operationally, but tend to get a lot of play on TV and social media.
Zelensky perhaps correctly believes that slowing the Russians down is the best that he can hope for. Meanwhile, he continues to play Churchill on the world stage, with his unwillingness to cede (again, even tactically) any ground without a scorched Earth defense.
Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut…
yesterday we were told that Wagner group mercenaries had been pulling men out of prison and sending them to fight for Russia and 20,000 of them had died in Bakhmut
How lucky to have the USA as a model and partner in peace.
War in that part of the world is ugly and now the Ukranians want us to believe they’ve saved their better troops for their upcoming (they promise it will be soon) “offensive”.
OK, let’s see them.
You saved the best for the upcoming battles so they better turn out a heck of a lot better than they have been recently.
If not, even some of those war hungry Democrats will start sounding like GOP outsiders.
Biden will get angry at them and start calling them Russian stooges too.
War of attrition. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Whoever gets attritted out first to zero loses the war.
So Untrained Ukrainians held Bakhmut for months while keeping their two Reserve Forces uncommitted?
Imagine what the trained ones would do to the Red Army. According to Prigozhin, Ukraine is now fully militarized thanks to Putin and one of the best Armies in the world. So much that Ukraine just rendered the second army in the world down to second Army in Ukraine 🤷🏽♂️
Does anyone know who in Ukraine side was calling the shots? Probably not. That is why Zelensky is so useful. He can play a role and read a script. But those making the decisions are hidden and therefore hard to blame and prosecute. What has to happen is a coup inside Ukraine organized by exactly those who are being used as cannon fodder. Sooner or later this is bound to happen and the Russians know this. They will continue to fight until Ukraine cracks. The US will never, nor will NATO. There are signs all over eastern EU that the tide is turning against the “neo-con” hard-liners.
The ever perfect Putin was calling the shots.
Happy now?
IMO it is the west Ukraine hard liners who have a gun at Zelensky’s back.
Given the source of information, WSJ, I say this is PR whitewash to explain away Ukrainian losses at Bakhmut.
To use Ron Paul’s take on the war at home to shore up support for Project Ukraine, the members of that club must explain away Ukrainian losses and ratchet up the escalation pressure.
Out of woodwork come committed supporters of Project Ukraine to urge us into providing ever more lethal military support, the one preferrably coming with US personnel. Their only hope at present is to get Europe or US suffer a loss, to drag us into a war.
Project Ukraine cheerleaders need to consult American public before committing our non-existent money and precious lives. They are pursuing a folly that may for the first time since the war of 1812 endanger our safety at home.
“’Bakhmut will teach you,’” that ominous phrase could have a deeper and more profound meaning. More to be revealed, but wouldn’t be obvious from the smoke, mirrors, screens, and Psyops.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the current regime in Ukraine is as much anti-Ukraine as it is anti-Russia. This is the product of the toxic trio of Sullivan, Blinken, and Nuland, their abiding hatred for Russia, the EU, and ultimately the USA. Zionism is after all a suicidal death cult that longs for a catastrophic world war that will change everything. They may soon get their fondest wish.
Amen
It seems like the Main Spring Counteroffensive is becoming Summer of Fall Counteroffensive…! By that time it would be too late…! Meanwhile, there would be some mini counteroffensive here and there with mute results…!
Putin bears the blame for this war and these tragic deaths. Cry about NATO all you want. Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine, just like George W Bush made the decision to invade Iraq.
Wars are started based on perspective. Russia believes this war was started by U.S./UK in 2014, just like Soviet Union believed WW2 started in June of 1941 and not 1939.
1991.
Yes, George couldn’t take the prodding and the bullying Iraq was doing towards the US for the previous 30 years. And of course, the anti-US military alliance that was surrounding the US was also very concerning to George. So, yes, same thing.
Bakhmut seems a whole lot like Khen Sanh. America won that battle and then lost the war.
Logically China is secretly supplying missiles to Russia to attrit NATO supplies, and at the low ebb of NATO’s supplies China will make its move re Taiwan.
I can’t say that I blame him for this move. Stalin did the same with cleaning minefields.
Roman Protasevich was a western government financed Nazi who had fought with the neo-Nazi Ukrainian Azov battalion before working for U.S. sponsored regime change media in Poland. He had directed the failed 2020 color-revolution in Belarus.
Two years ago a Ryanair flight from Athens to Lithuania was diverted after the Belorussian flight control informed the pilot that it had received an email which said that the plane carried a bomb and would explode during landing in Lithuania. The plane diverted to Minsk.
When the passengers passed through passport control the immigration officers found that two of the passengers had outstanding arrest warrants against them. These were Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend and co-worker Sofia Sapega.
A trial followed and he was sentenced to eight years in prison for terrorism. On May 22 was pardoned and released.
Wow- and the Ukraine didn’t even have the decency to send those poorly trained conscripts into battle armed only with a small shovel, as the Russians did with their own poorly trained conscripts?
Why do I get the sneaky feeling- just a feeling, mind you- that we’ll be hearing more and more stories like this in the coming weeks as Ukrainian forces are ground into fertilizer by the Russians? I see the beginnings of a ‘defeat narrative’ that places the blame on anything and everything but at the feet of Zelensky and Co.- I will not be in the least surprised if, when the end comes, Z and Co. will pull out the playbook of their ideological forebears and use the ‘stabbed in the back’ talking point to explain the Ukraine’s defeat. Anything to avoid accepting responsibility for the weakness of one’s own government, right?
Slightly off topic but interesting article. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/05/erwin-haas/863944-2/
Yeah…like Russia is only sending hardened troops who volunteered to fight, to Ukraine.
NOT.
Both sides are treating their citizens like cannon fodder.
i served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam. It’s not exactly headline news to know Ukraine treated its draftees as so much cannon fodder.
Most of the Ukrainian so called professional soldiers are DEAD hence sending in cannon fodder , and as they run out of bodies to throw at the Russians Z will have to sue for peace , not to mention the fact he could had peace long long ago but for the interference of Boris Johnson / Biden ,
The horror of sending those untrained men to their death was an effective counter to the horror of a “meatgrinder” war of attrition.
Horror met horror. Those most nearly innocent, most helpless anyway, were the ones who died.
This is not uncommon in wars of attrition. The meatgrinder is fed meat, as the one being ground finds those it can best “spare.”
The post-WW1 suggestions for small professional armies, from de Gaulle and Liddle Hart and Fuller as examples, all found inspiration in this, to avoid this. They sought to shift power back to those who create what de Gaulle’s book “Vers l’Armée de Métier” wanted, a small highly professional force getting its power from quality rather than conscripted quantity. This is not unlike what the Germans did with their ideas for an elite armored striking force.
So we came full circle, and achieved Verdun again.
“Fresh recruits who wouldn’t fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound”.
If that part of ByeDone’s War doesn’t break your heart, then you haven’t got one.
Prigozhin claimed during an interview that at the beginning of the Bakhmut war he had 35,000 troops and then he recruited an additional 50,000 prisoners. So he had 85,000 troops at his disposal. Prigozhin claimed during the 8 months of his Bakhmut fight 10,000 prisoners and 10,000 full time professional Wagner fighters were killed in action. This raises suspicions because professional Wagner soldiers were killed at higher rate than prisoners who were used in suicidal human waste attacks. Igor Girkin pointed out that half of prisoners reportedly received pardons so it looks like Wagner lost 25,000 and not 10,000. He also speculated that other losses are 50% higher meaning that Wagner lost 15,000 full time professional fighters. The total number of KIAs therefore is estimated to be around 40,000 troops but this is only KIAs as many soldiers were wounded. Prigozhin claims that he received the same number of wounded as killed so this put the number of total casualties at 80,000. One can conclude that at the beginning of the Bakhmut war Prigozhin had 85,000 troops and at the end only 5,000.. This means that Ukraine has achieved the objective of destroying the most capable elements on the Russian Army ahead of the beginning of the counteroffensive.
At the beginning of the Bakhmut war, in mid Winter, Wagner was responsible for 85 Km of the front while during the last month he was responsible for only 5 Km of the front. That is why Prigozhin wants to keep his troops out of the combat zone for a few months.
Most casualty numbers are normally understated to avoid domestic backlash so when Prigozhin reported his true numbers, Igor Girkin asked him to shut the f up.
Lastly, Prigozhin brought up some key points: he is yet to find Neo Nazis in Ukraine and that Putin’s demilitarization objective has just achieved the opposite.
And again, during all these border fights, Ukraine has never committed its reserves which could be anywhere between 40-80,000 well trained and equipped troops. They also have thousands of troops available guarding the Northern border and since a Russian attack from the North seems unlikely, the upcoming counter offensive could potentially blow a giant hole in the frontlines.
Your grasping for straws, it is no more than bean counting.
There are reports of fragging in the Ukrainian army, I tend to believe that, it happened in Vietnam when the American people and soldiers were fed up. In Ukraine it would be hard to believe it is not happening, NATO has shown no consideration for the Ukrainian soldiers and people, they go on killing the Ukrainian people until the last Ukrainian standing, they said it and act just like that.
Yes, I know. NATO invaded Ukraine.
Are you denying that NATO was first in Ukraine? They had many NATO/Ukraine military exercises, 10 more had been planed for 2022. So the Army Times reported, not true or what? Ukraine is a de facto NATO member, with NATO TRAINING, EQUIPMENT and FUNDING. Without that they would have negotiated an end to the slaughter a long time ago, people like you are guilty of complicity of the genocide of the Ukrainian people.
The USA/NATO leadership is criminal. they could easily have put an end to the slaughter a long time ago, Biden had it in his hand to avoid the war if he had wanted to, he wanted this war more than anyone else, with the exception of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
And now he plays the same game with China, the man and the vampire he put in in charge are despicable.
Wagner has presented figures for the Ukrainian losses as follows;
72,095 Casualties, 509 Prisoners, 309 Tanks, 697 IFV’s and APC’s, 1134 Armoured Vehicles, 3159 mortars and cannons, 300 ATGM’s, 83 MRLS’s, 45 Air Defense Systems, 282 UAV’s, 149 EW/Radars, 5 fighter jets and 4 helicoptors.