I kinda have hard time buying the fact that Bakhmut only had symbolic value sure Russians overhyped this battle and Ukrainians did the opposite but what is the actual strategic value of said city? The only thing that comes to mind is M-03highway to ease logistics
The value for russia was that it was in the way
The value for ukraine was to bleed russia.
It was the defensive line they hastily chose when several donuts fell, to give time to prepare the actual kramatorsk sloviansk line
>Ukrainians did the opposite
definitely false. Zelensky said it was a fortress of Ukraine's fighting spirit and freedom and that they would not retreat. It's outside observers who are left baffled over why this shit hole was worth tens of thousands of Russian lives to level
>t's outside observers who are left baffled over why this shit hole was worth tens of thousands of Russian lives to level
hundreds of thousands.
potentially, it could be over 100k yes, but it's definitely more than 10k and less than 200k so i stick to my wording.
That aside can you possibly imagine one hundred thousand unclaimed corpses rotting in the streets of a tiny town Jesus Christ hell is real and Russia is creating it
Originally it was meant to slow the Russians down to allow Ukraine some time to fortify the much more defensible heights and cities beyond, but when Russia couldn't make any gains there, Ukraine made it the primary salient. Pretty much all there is to it
It made sense for the Ukrainians to defend the city since now Russians will try to turn the next one into rubble.
Now all of a sudden ukies could care less about the city cause it’s lost lol
>all of a sudden
It’s been the same opinion since last year, you are just retarded
I mean, it's effectively a razed city now, there's practically zero value there now that it's been "liberated" by convict rape squads. But now that the flanks are collapsing and the city in ruins, Wagner might actually be fucked.
Was intended to be part of the southern pincer upon Kramatorsk. With Lyman/Izyum being the northern section.
Pic related from August of last year illustrates that fairly clearly.
Of course, Lyman/Izyum (and more) were taken, so no northern pincer. It was assumed that Russia would take its mobiks along with Wagner to go do something else more useful elsewhre. They didn't and proceeded to spend the next 293 taking Bakhmut. During with they cannibalized men and material meant for Vuhledar, Avdiivka, and Kreminna, directly leading to varying level of failure on all of those fronts during the Russian Winder offense, with Vuhledar being the most famous of those failures.
You can find posts after the Lyman/Izyum collapse quoting ISW, noting how even ISW was assessing the Russians as being retarded by pursing Bakhmut. That was about 270 days ago. It has not had strategic value in a very long time for Russian forces, and unless Russia has a plan to take back Lyman it won't have any in the future either.
This is what that area looks like today, by the way.
It's weird imagining such a massive pincer, when we've spend months hearing about movement of a single mile a month or so.
It was a different time; HIMARS were still new and Russia may have looked like a failure, but not a complete failure.
They still care about the city, retard.
ISW, RUSI, Bong MoD, Pentagon, bloggers and random retards on twitter questioned why Russia cared so much. But the biggest? Girken himself said 'What is the fucking point? Okay so we capture Bakhmut, what next? What happens now? Is that the victory? Russian MoD has been hyping it up that they expect Ukraine to surrender if it is lost but it won't defeat Ukraine. We have no plan and the Ukrainians have one - kick Russia out of Ukraine. Our leadership is retarded blahblahblah should have mobilized the entire country'.
So, no. You can go into the archives and search 'Bakhmut' and 'Speedbump' and 'Last a week' or a combination or variation of that and you'll see for the last six or so months people saying it had no purpose any more. In fact, if you go back far enough, you'll see people questioning why Wagner cared so much about it and people claiming it was because Russia had put a bounty/reward/bonus on Bakhmut being captured and hadn't rescinded it and Wagner was trying to capture it to line their pockets. But since Priggy went on a reeeeeepage, that might not be true or he just flat out doesn't care.
Bakhmut holds a secret underground vault containing an ancient Proto-garden gnome weapon. The ukes know it exists but not where the entrance to the vault is, but the rus department of alien antiquities does. The majority of this special military operation has been to get their hands on it and another one hidden near Kyiv. Soon the world will quake as Glorious Putin opens communication with the godhead.
Bakhmut only got hit the hardest because it's closest to Russian supply lines. In other words, on paper, it's the simplest target for the Russians to attack.
In terms of strategic value, it *was* important. Was. If Bakhmut fell back in 2022, the Russians could badly threaten Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
But they needed Izium in order to do that. And they lost Izium with barely a fight.
Take a look at the map of the counteroffensive. The red dotted line was the Russian defensive line before the counteroffensive. If Bakhmut was taken, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were next if the Russians advanced from the East and North. But then they lost the North.
So really, Bakhmut is really only important for propaganda value. Russian want it because they hype it up so much and they need a win of any kind. The Ukrainians want it because they need to influence feelings in the West, and denying the Russians a victory is significantly worth more than the land.
Forgot the map
I remember when the zigger apes were screeching about how Izyum was the lynchpin of the campaign there and mighty bear just won the east
>The Ukrainians want it because they need to influence feelings in the West
or, you know, stop ziggers from bombing other cities down the line turning them also into ruins. Not everything is about geofeels politics you know
I need to go meta on this: What is the strategic value of continuously asking what the strategic value of Bakhmut is?
It's been answered enough times for the truth to be triangulated to the point of pristine photogrammetry.
>actual strategic value of said city?
Be a defense line. Russians had to commit up to 10 times higher losses to take over it. They get no value of this city, because advancing means turning literally every building, every street, every room into ruins.
Its the same as running against pikes with your bodies until pikes are completely covered in bodies to become usable.
Does russia has enough human ressources to commit against other 10-100 bakhumts further on the line?
>Russians had to commit up to 10 times higher losses to take over it.
and meanwhile pussians say they inflicted 10 times the casualties they received to AFU, who do i believe?
whoever pays you.
I'm unemployed
>who do i believe?
Does it matter? Just dont believe and wait till the end, where you will see real numbers. Then laugh at whatever side that lost.
Not that you will get anything from knowing the correct information right now.
>where you will see real numbers
Russia officially claimed they lost 8,000,000 in WW2 (including civilians). It was, however, many times that. So, no, there is not going to be any accurate numbers. You'll have to wait for Americans and Bongs to do multiple estimates and then find an average between the numbers and depending on who wrote it and how slanted their research was.
>who do i believe?
anyone other than the russians. simple as
artemovsk in itself will not change the tide of the battle, there is no secret missile silo russia can take control of or industrial capacity they can deny the ukrainians. However it is crucial for russia to capture the town to continue the war and therefor crucial for ukraine to deny it.
No artemovsk = no russian progression.
Ofc ukraine has thrown everything into it.
>Ofc ukraine has thrown everything into it.
>UKR forces are still not committing any reserves to Bakhumt btw
>t. Murz and Rybar
Guess they're NAFO gays
>Murz and Rybar
>Not Ukrainian Nationalists
lmao
To the Russians, it was initially important for their advance, then after the counter offensive became important as a symbol of SOME sort of advance still existing, especially after launching a separate offensive only to get pushed back with next to no gains.
To Ukraine, it was initially a delaying action to buy time to fortify the areas behind Bakhmut, then turned into an actual fight once the Russians failed to take it over the course of countless months.
Anyone with knowledge has consistently said the following:
1. When Russians held Izyum, taking Bakhmut quickly would endanger cities like Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Losing Izyum made Bakhmut less valuable for Russia
2. Taking the city before it and the surrounding area could get fortified, would endanger other Ukrainian positions. Russia lost some of the battlefield impact by taking so long
3. Bakhmut was one of the few places where Russia could supply to support a major attack. Bakhmut was never a good, or easy, place to attack but there weren't any better options. Taking Bakhmut, once repaired for military use, would facilitate further advances
4. If Ukraine retreated, they would have had to fight the same Russian troops farther west, in Cities that actually mattered.
5. Bakhmut wasn't particularly defensible but had a lot of roads which made it hard to cut off. Losing the ground north and south made it harder to defend
6. Fighting, head-on, into the Ukrainian defenses in Bakhmut was stupid. Russia suffered a lot of casualties doing it. The goal should have been cutting it off, which Russia failed to accomplish.
7. Without western support and equipment, Ukraine would take horrendous losses retaking territory and it would take a long time to do so. Ukraine was not ready to re-take more territory after the Kherson offensive.
8. Russia was always best off waiting for Ukraine to attack and spending the time building defenses, saving up shells and equipment, saving manpower, and properly training people.
9. By attacking Ukraine over the winter, it played directly into Ukraine's more cherished dream. For Russia to throw away manpower and equipment needed to defend against Ukraine by attacking Ukrainian defenses with untrained meat waves.
10. While some self-proclaimed analysts criticized defending Bakhmut long-term after the fall of Soledar, no one credible provided any better alternative for public consideration.
Very nicely put. I could add that it would be nice to have an assessment about Ukraine losses because the scenery it ain't clear at all. Maybe we will only know at the end of the war
When your own Army admits losing 5-to-1 and Ukraine is claims you're losing 10-to-1, whatever the numbers, they aren't great for Russia.
Ukraine should rig Bakhmut to blow and detonate ALL the Russians inside of it. Highest yield explosives possible.
They have been setting up buildings to blow before retreating so they can kill the Russians inside once they occupy the building. There's videos of it.
I mean a much bigger bomb that can level a ton of the ruins in one sitting. Wipe out lots of Russians in one strike. Overkill.
Real life is not a Bong film with a giant bomb somewhere. The amount of explosives required to do that would be immense and would require a lot of prep work. Even if this was all possible, Ukraine isn't in Bakhmut any more (according to Russia) or is in the last remaining outskirt buildings (according to Ukraine).
There is nothing to blow. Ukraine rigged buildings to explode multiple times. But they are disarmed or triggered and then occupied.
Could bombard the city with air-deployed landmines.
Could, but would make any attempt to retake it later on difficult and those are limited stockpiles and better off screwing up assaults elsewhere.