The unrelenting fight to hold Bakhmut

Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a back-and-forth fight over the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, as Kyiv has looked to regain control of the battered city, which has been mostly under Russian control since May 2023. While Russian officials have long held that the complete capture of the city could be a key victory, Ukraine and its American allies have placed less emphasis on Bakhmut's potential fall.

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.

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.

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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." There has not been much of an advance by Ukraine since then; as of September 2024, Bakhmut remains under total Russian control, according to a battle map from the Institute for the Study of War

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.

The fight over Bakhmut has "come to symbolize the grinding war of attrition in Ukraine," The Washington Post said. While the Post concurs that Bakhmut has little strategic value, "the relentless, intensifying fight for control of the city ... has made it a rallying cry and political battleground for both sides."

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.

While capturing Bakhmut may have been important for Russia, the city's minimal strategic value has left a lot to be desired for the invading forces. Ukraine used Bakhmut to "inflict massive losses on the attacking force," CNN said, with heavy losses continuing throughout 2023. Despite Russian assertions that Ukraine's counteroffensive was unsuccessful, it is "now Moscow's troops who are on the defensive in this ravaged city," said Euronews, with no end in sight as the war in Ukraine nears its third anniversary.