The symbolic and ferocious fight over Bakhmut

Russia and Ukraine have long been fighting over the city of Bakhmut, a conflict that is unlikely to be stemmed in 2025 barring an unforeseen end to the Russo-Ukrainian war. Ukrainian forces have looked to regain control of the battered city, which has mostly been under Russian control since May 2023, in a battle that has largely reduced Bakhmut to rubble. Russian officials have long held that Bakhmut is a key and necessary stronghold for advancement into Ukraine; however, Ukraine and its allies have placed less emphasis on the city, calling its capture mostly symbolic.

What is the situation in Bakhmut?

Located in Ukraine's northeast Donetsk region, Bakhmut has been one of the epicenters of fighting ever since the Russo-Ukrainian war first began, and became occupied by Russian forces after a monthslong battle that began in July 2022. The city is just over 120 miles from the Russian border and was home to more than 70,000 people prior to the conflict. By June 2023, it was estimated that there were only 500 civilians left in Bakhmut. The majority of Bakhmut's prior citizens fled the city, and many still dot the outskirts of the once-sizable metropolis.

Intense fighting in Bakhmut (which is partly a result of its close proximity to Russia) did not begin to ramp up until the end of 2022. Ukraine was initially able to hold off the majority of invading Russian forces in the first months of the assault, but with resources dwindling, the Russian army began "attacking Bakhmut from three directions in a persistent attempt to encircle Ukrainian troops," The New York Times said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Russia had "actually destroyed Bakhmut" and "turned it into burnt ruins," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the end of 2022. After additional months of fighting, Bakhmut "had been effectively occupied by Russian troops" by May 2023, said the Kyiv Independent. Russia began operations soon afterward to begin driving the remaining Ukrainian forces from the area. By the end of that month, Ukrainians had evacuated all but an "insignificant" portion of the city.

But Ukraine has been attempting to implement a counteroffensive to regain portions of the city ever since. By September 2023, Ukraine was "vowing to take back the shattered city of Bakhmut but [faced] a long, hard slog after encountering fierce Russian resistance." But what began as a promising effort to recapture the city has largely fizzled out. While Russia faced heavy casualties in the first counterattack by Ukraine, anti-Russian forces have made little headway since then; as of January 2025, Bakhmut remains under firm Russian control, according to a battle map from the Institute for the Study of War. The surrounding cities of Ivanhrad, Yahidne and Khromove are also under Russian occupation.

Why was Russia so keen to capture the city?

A large part of it is symbolic. The desire to overtake Bakhmut reflected "[Russian President] Vladimir Putin's long-held aim of capturing Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as the Donbas," Time said. While Bakhmut may not be a strategically important city for Russia, the Kremlin will still "try to hold it as long as possible," Ukrainian lawmaker Yehor Cherniev said to Time, more as a show of force than anything else.

Almost all military analysts agree that Bakhmut "has little strategic value," said the BBC. Unlike other towns in Ukraine, Bakhmut is "not a garrison town or transport hub or a major center of population." Russia's focus on Bakhmut throughout the war is largely because it "needs a success to sell to pro-Kremlin propagandists back home."

However, one faction that did see strategic value in taking Bakhmut was the Wagner Group, described by ABC News as "a private military organization run by an ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin with tens of thousands of fighters." But the Wagner Group's presence in Bakhmut, at one time extremely strong, began to dwindle soon after the fighting began. Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin — who would eventually break with Putin and lead a rebellion attempt against Russian forces — said in May 2023 that his troops had withdrawn from the city and handed control to Russia. This wasn't without casualties, though; about "20,000 troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group were killed in the monthslong battle," said Al Jazeera. Prigozhin himself died under mysterious circumstances in an August 2023 plane crash.

What is the significance of Bakhmut's capture?

From the outset of the war, the Russians were unsurprisingly eager to raise their flag over Bakhmut, given the symbolic win it would represent. But Russia also seemed to believe that the capture of the city would have a series of ripple effects. Moscow thought that "capturing the city would be a step towards its major objective of seizing the full territory of the surrounding Donbas region," Reuters said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and its Western allies have responded to the capture of Bakhmut with a more muted take. Prior to the city's fall, Mick Ryan, a former Australian general, told CNN that the capture of Bakhmut wouldn't be the death blow Russia hoped for. A Ukrainian retreat "should be treated as a routine tactic rather than a harbinger of disaster," he said.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had a similar view of the Russian advancement, playing down what it actually means in terms of the war. A Ukrainian withdrawal would not "[change] the tide of this fight," Austin said to reporters, per The Financial Times. Ukraine's departure from the city wouldn't be "an operational or strategic setback," Austin said.

The city's minimal strategic value has left a lot to be desired for the invading forces, and those who remain in Bakhmut have tried to make the best of life under Russian occupation. Bakhmut is "not buildings or bricks, Bakhmut is people," Svitlana Ovcharenko, the editor-in-chief of Bakhmut-based newspaper Vpered, said to The Guardian. The newspaper prints up to 6,000 copies a week for distribution, and each edition "urges readers not to get lost in grief for everything taken from them." Its main aim is to encourage former residents of Bakhmut to "stop waiting to return home and start living," said Ovcharenko.