Unironically, can someone explain to me what the actual strategic advantage of controlling the ruins of Bakhmut is for the Russian armed forces?
What will this allow them to achieve from here on out?
Unironically, can someone explain to me what the actual strategic advantage of controlling the ruins of Bakhmut is for the Russian armed forces?
What will this allow them to achieve from here on out?
>Unironically, can someone explain to me what the actual strategic advantage of controlling the ruins of Bakhmut is for the Russian armed forces?
they get to brag that they "won"
>What will this allow them to achieve from here on out?
more losses
Pretty much exactly this. Especially since both Wagner and the regular military commanders were feeling increasing pressure to deliver on Bakhmut. Victims of their own propaganda; they promised it would be the next Stalingrad/Kursk/etc. that turned the tide, and so as the fight ground on they couldn't cut losses or they'd have every proclamation they'd ever made in front of Putin read back to them.
Prigozhin almost certainly was getting increasingly nervous that he and Wagner were being set up to take the blame for the whole failed war effort if he couldn't deliver Bakhmut, which is why he was getting more and more willing to be publicly confrontational and risk his neck demanding support, to try and set up his own scapegoat ("the military wanted me to fail so they cut off our shells, please it's not my fault") to try and weasel out of trouble.
>What will this allow them to achieve from here on out?
Each Russian conscript is going to be promoted to officer and tasked with guarding several square kilometers of front. They don't get any troops, though, they're only promoted because the rest of them were mulched during the last 7 months.
"We held onto the city in the East for as long as the Battle of Verdun and inflicted massive casualties on the attackers" is in no way a loss of face for the Ukrainians. The only morale boost you'll get for the Russians are the ones already huffing state propaganda that Bakhmut is basically on Kyiv's doorstep, and they're already delusionally all-in on the war. The survivors of Bakhmut on the Russian side are going to be entirely disillusioned with the "what if we just keep running into the meat grinder until it clogs" tactics and that shit is going to carry on into new units they're a part of.
Nice false flag Pidor.
Back when the vatnigs controlled Izyum, taking Bakhmut would have allowed them to pressure Sloviansk from multiple directions, which would've let them take it more easily.
The vatnigs don't control Izyum any more. Bakhmut is pointless.
Taking it was one thing, but keeping it wasn't all that easy. um.
I appreciate your pun.
They want Crimea and the east
Territory beyond that can be used as a bargaining chip with Ukraine and the rest offering to return it in exchange for the territory they do want and an end to hostilities
A bombed out ruin holds very little bargaining value though
Well, I guess it means that they can move on Chasiv Yar or maybe Kramatorsk so they can do it all again and throw away 10s of thousands of more lives over another six months or more. That said, I don't think they'll do that, Russian offensive potential is surely spent for now, the ball will be in Ukraine's court for the foreseeable future. I just really think they needed some kind of win for proaganda purposes. It's been an utterly dreadful couple of weeks for Russia otherwise and the ziggies needed something, anything, so that they could cope. You can see that with the way they're shitting the board up like they just won the war.
Control of the Bakhmut road and rail lines helps towards the goal of making everything east of the Dnieper River a demilitarized zone. This will provide the buffer from NATO for Mother Russia that President Putin wanted.
What rail lines?
Oh you mean the destroyed ones within artillery range? I'm sure that lots of trains will go through here.
>This will provide the buffer from NATO for Mother Russia that President Putin wanted.
High IQ strat. The fact that the war led to Sweden and Finland joining NATO and effectively doubling the Russian borders to NATO members is inconsequential.
1)Russians cannot handle direct combat. In every instance of direct combat, their forces struggle or outright disintegrate. We've seen evidence to suggest entire army corps might have evaporated in a matter of hours.
2)Russians have a massive numerical, artillery and airforce advantage. It's shrinking, but it's still there.
3)Any fight in the open give a serious advantage to Russian forces, since they can leverage their artillery and airforce.
4)Any fight in a city is a massive problem for Russian forces, forcing them to either suffer enormous casualties and pull back and attempt to anihilate enemy positions through lengthy bombardment.
5)Just ignoring cities is bad, because it leaves enemies behind you that can attack your logistics (e.g. what happened around Kiev)
So based on this, they need to flatten and roll over Bakhmut in order to advance further, where they will repeat the process with the next set of cities/towns/villages.
It will keep going until they hit some improvised Maginot line out in the open that is more resistant to bombardment. Or until they run out of artillery.
>where they will repeat the process with the next set of cities/towns/villages.
This won't happen again though
losing an average of 20 pieces of artillery per day will soon put paid to that advantage over the course of the next few months.
Apparently the opposite and the reason western analysts though holding onto Bahmut as long as possible wasn't a good trade.
Also exactly why Russian offensives are done, Vuhledar was very obviously supposed to be the spear tip of winder offensive operations considering the equipment and they got absolutely annihilated. Bakhmut only fell because Russia was already besieging the place and could pour bodies in. I highly doubt Russia can advance to the next city at this point with all their equipment and artillery.
sort of but what you're forgetting is that Bakhmut was a victory brought on by Wagner. At this point the entire offensive was a Wagner offensive, hence all the bitching and moaning about lack of supplies/arty/bmp's
But now that Wagner has made the claim to the city they're actually pulling out forces and turning control back over to the RAF, so they'll be occupying the city sooner or later
>What will this allow them to achieve from here on out?
Completely unironically now that the city has been fought over for so long, seizing it would be a massive morale boost for the Russians and a loss of face for the Ukrainians. In itself it's quite meaningless, but this war isn't fought just on the front lines. More than anything it's now fought in the minds of the American and European electorates, and unless Ukraine can show consistent success on the battlefield, sooner or later a negotiated settlement will be commanded from therein.
I can't see the European electorates failing to provide support if Ukraine loses some towns, the USA is less clear given that Russian trollfarms are trying their hardest to associate Ukraine with transexuals and the culture war and also destroying the economy and is a scary nuclear threat and etc etc.
>I can't see the European electorates failing to provide support if Ukraine loses some towns
You're an optimist then.
More like he isn't a vatmoron overdosing on copium.
I guess you're wrong because at least in Italy support for Ukraine ramped up only after the Kherson-Karkov September offensive. People don't want to put their money on a failing horse
>massive morale boost
40IQ generalship here. You might as well argue that ineffective weapons that "inspire fear" are useful for war.
Russia is permanently low morale because their troop quality is abysmal.
Does that mean Ukraine's quality is even worse?
>muh morale counter
go back to >>>/v/
by "morale boost" I refer to the willingness of putin's supporters - among the power structures and the general population - to keep up supporting his war effort.
>unless Ukraine can show consistent success on the battlefield
Not to mention the Ukrainians held out for several MONTHS against the most intense Russian effort of the war. Longer than Mariupol and Severodonetsk combined.
that was almost a year ago now, nobody cares anymore. in the internet and 24h news cycle age ukraine needs to show CONSISTENT success on the battlefield. the public has an extremely short attention span.
Funny how in a year we went from Russia is strong enough to take Berlin in a week to now Ukraine is too weak and losing because it wasn’t able to push Russia off all of its territory in year.
>ukraine needs to show CONSISTENT success on the battlefield
Vuhledar.
wrecking the zigger winter offensive was not enough for the adhd brainlets? The slaughter was so complete ziggers are unironically trying to memory hole it as if it never happened
All the catposting was getting to them
Territory is territory. That's it. It was a pyrrhic victory at best.
But they haven’t taken it yet.
Who cares?
now THIS is copeposting, you guys have been saying they'll never take it for like 6 months and now you've moved the goalpost. Ukraine spent a ton of resources and personnel defending it (Russia did too, just to be clear). I doubt it's actually significant from an objective standpoint, but it's at least a morale blow for the people that were involved in the bloodbath or knew people who were.
https://apnews.com/article/bakhmut-russia-ukraine-wagner-prigozhin-da2fc05b818b3dcc39decd40b17d2d8b
The issue is that Bahkmut was a gimme. On paper it should have been a Week 2 or 3 take at the easiest, not a Month 15. It's like someone celebrating they managed to tie their shoes after 8 hours of effort.
The Ukranians were never going to be able to hold it forever, but every month, week, and day they have held it has been a humiliation for the Russians because they shouldn't have been able to hold it at all. It's an utter absurdity it took Russia 15 months to take fucking Bahkmut, a testament to their sheer incompetence.
The longer it dragged on the easier it was for Ukraine to defend since they were training more people and getting more western weapons and equipment. There was plenty of sentiment here suggesting Russia couldn't take it at all.
>you guys have been saying they'll never take it for like 6 months
>6 months
>6 months
>6 months
>6 months
do you have any idea how pathetic this is?
>they'll never take it
They haven't yet.
>you guys have been saying they'll never take it for like 6 months
No we didn't, and this is how we know you're a tourist. We talked all the time about how Russia was going to inevitably take the city, that was just patently obvious. We made fun of them for it because the city wasn't worth the effort Russia was putting into it in the first place and it was taking them a bafflingly long time to do it. Cute attempt at strawmanning us though.
>but it's at least a morale blow for the people that were involved in the bloodbath or knew people who were.
Yeah, that's true of both sides, but especially the Russian one since they spent more blood and treasure on it.
Lets them supply their forces in Kharkiv
> Russian built tower block
> built in under a year
yeah, no thanks
now show the rest of the city and the people that lived there.
Isn't this from months ago, isn't it even worse right now kek.
It's quite a morale boost since many soldiers died for it and Zelensky said it was important to keep it
>Morale boost
Moron.
I know you're sad for the loss of your marvel fortress but have some respect, homo
>bombed out city in the middle of nowhere
>70k pop pre war
>no strategic value
>marvel fortress
Rusmorons unironically flaunt this as their magnum opus operation after tremendous losses. This is how bad things really are
> Strategic fortress town
> HATO biolabs underneath Artemovsk
> Strategic obstacle before Kramatorsk and Pisskey
> Capeshit from HATO trannie
Ukronazis are being defeated as we speak, the ass is in the ass.
Russian performance what as shitty as it gets but... you keep losing to that
>keep losing to that
Kherson is Russian forever, right vatnik? Russian stronk and 2nd army of world.
That was in september, when does the new offensive start Taras? You need some more time to beg around?
Just two more weeks until Ukraine falls Vanya. Russia stronk.
>Rusmorons unironically flaunt this as their magnum opus operation after tremendous losses
this proves that you're that butthurt, really.
no he said it was important to let the russians feed their cock meat into Bakmut's anus grinder
>It's quite a morale boost
Kek, yes I bet the Russian morale is at an all time high, I bet that they all think it was worth it.
Since Russians lack any concept of empathy for others (especially other Russians), the surviving Russians do think it was worth it because they aren't the dead Russians, and see little reason to care about their dead. Who cares if some other Ivan gets killed, as long as I'm still here, right?
The wounded and direct relatives of the dead may have a different opinion though.
>It's quite a morale boost since many soldiers died for it and Zelensky said it was important to keep it
>political
the Russian people saw it as a revenge for losing the battle of Kherson and it might help with recruitment and morale
>tactical
the Russian army is a largely conscrit based army which relies on decisive fire superiority to support infantry's advances,now that Bakmuth has fallen they can stop worrying about Ukranian breaking the flanks and encircle them
>Strategical
If they want to capture the Dombas they at least have to try to take Bakhmut however if you consider that taking Bakhmut was supposed to be the start of a large multifront offensive and not the end you can see how the Russian army completely underperformed if not outright failed compared to the goals they set
>it might help with recruitment and morale
losing 100,000 people taking 9 months to grind a small town to dust will definitely help recruit more meat for the grinder
>now that Bakmuth has fallen they can stop worrying about Ukranian breaking the flanks and encircle them
this is an even greater concern for Russia now
The meat has no say. The support comes drom others.
> we send more meat, da?
>Idk why are we sending planes.
Yes lad, that shithole is important because connects 2 major points and it makes easier to launch attacks from there if the Russians control it, that's why Ukrainians has been figthing there 9 months or so.
it's not important at all you mongoloid. it's as important as the billion other tiny ukie shit hole towns
>uniri=onically asking this
this is why your country doesn't rank #1 in surface area
It was the backbone of the ukrainian defence and the Gibraltar of the Donbass. Zelensky himself said in the speech before US Congress that Bakhmut is the “stronghold in the Donbas” and that the Battle for Bakhmut will “change the trajectory of our war”. It will take months of work for Ukrainians to build the next line of defense while Russia keeps on pushing and securing more ground.
>It will take months of work for Ukrainians to build the next line of defense while Russia keeps on pushing and securing more ground
The bigger cities that are much harder to attack
idk how well fortified are, you have only one natural barrier there, the river.
Urban combat is always difficult and Russians suck at it.
>Russia keeps on pushing and securing more ground
Except they won't because every time Russia attempts an armoured thrust now they get buckbroken, they don't have the cohesion necessary to move all their equipment across open ground to the next city. The only reason that they've managed this was because Bakhmut was already invested and all their equipment in place to just throw bodies at it. They're not even going to be able to break out of Bakhmut to the West.
>It will take months of work for Ukrainians to build the next line of defense
Russia just gave them 9 free months to fortify (even more) Slovyansk-Kramatorsk
Bonus in that Ukraine will have learned a LOT from Bakhmut and worked that into the defense of Slovyansk-Kramatorsk.
Expect a TON of deathtraps, underground supply tunnels, emergency supply caches, etc.
Let's see how it goes the next months, Russia should try to reatake Kharkov Kherson Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv this summer
Assuming Russian has any offensive power left, lol. They used up a ton trying to take this one fucking place.
idk if Ukraine has any too. All that has been stagnant the last 5 months with no mayor movements.
You said that before Kharkiv/Kherson too. Ukrainians don't rush into things.
That's because Ukraine has been building up their strength rather than throwing it piecemeal at fortified positions.
Correct. Russians are fucking stupid, Ukrainians are not.
>All that has been stagnant the last 5 months
and yet we've not even seen any Western armour in Bakhmut outside of gavins and spartans, don't interrupt your enemy while they're making a mistake. The russian army had some routs on the wings of Bakhmut just because Ukie tdf pushed and Wagner threatened to leave. Russian morale is in the toilet.
>Russia should try to reatake Kharkov Kherson Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv this summer
Russian advances are now measured in meters per day, it will take them 10 years to do that
Russian advances will grind to a halt when Ukraine gets total air superiority.
You are literally mentally retarded if you actually think that.
exactly since their advances have been at a halt for months
They can't even get jets in the sky without some sort of SAM hitting it.
actually with the fall of Bahkmut, the forward chunk of region west of it will automatically fall to Russian occupation as a given. For a forum of weapon tards, none of you idiots seem to understand how war actually works.
>the forward chunk of region west of it will automatically fall to Russian occupation as a given
You mean "legally" fall to Russian occupation?
will it? it's been a few days and that hasn't exactly happened, how long will that take, two weeks?
>will automatically fall to Russian occupation as a given
How? RUAF have made 0 notable advances anywhere else in the past 9 months (and suffered losses at least comparable to Bakhmut trying to zerg rush Avdiivka, with fuck all to show for it).
If Girkin and Prigozhin are to be believed, they've also spent a very sizable chunk of their offensive weaponry and ammunition grinding Bakhmut to dust.
If anything, they might have trouble actually holding on to what little land they've taken longer than a month or 2.
LMAO, no. You're projecting, vatmoron. Bakhmut is at the bottom of a slope that starts going up west of it. The terrain west of Bakhmut is perfect defensive ground against an offensive coming from the east.
>the forward chunk of region west of it will automatically fall to Russian occupation as a given
Lol, sure.
>For a forum of weapon tards, none of you idiots seem to understand how war actually works.
Yeah, you sure showed us with your amazing insight. Thanks for outing yourself as a 4chan tourist, though.
Right, as if the Ukrainians haven't built a single defense line in the entire 9 months Bakhmut was holding.
And hopefully an enormous stockpile of IEDs. I want to see Russians get Iraq'ed.
>the “stronghold in the Donbas”
Correct.
>and that the Battle for Bakhmut will “change the trajectory of our war”
Well yes. The annihilation of Russias remaining offensive capabilities at Bakhmut has indeed changed the trajectory of the war. In Ukraine's favour, that is.
And all that over a strategically meaningless forward position that wasn't expected to last more than a few days originally.
LMAO. The same Russians that just took 9 months of meatgrinder battle to take a minor town and have exhausted their reserves in the process are supposed to try and take half of Ukraine this summer, all while the Ukrainians spent the last 9 months further fortifying and building up their reserves. Absolute delusion.
Christ almighty vatniks are fucking retarded
Importance of Bakhmut is precisely in retarded ziggers sending a wave after wave of mobiks and fagnerites to their deaths, while claiming on incel slave Z that "it's actually Ukronazis losing their entire army and hundred thousands of HATO mercenaries there"
>the Gibraltar of the Donbass
Quick someone write that down.
It will allow them to be encircled by the Ukrainian military.
>Mariupol is the perfect example of that.
are you aware how satellite imagery works?
Russia won't get the chance. They'll be wiped out when Bakhmut is surrounded. And Mariupol will eventually be purged of Moscowvite scum.
They didn’t have a choice because that’s where Ukraine setup their stronghold. RuAF didn’t have the capability to safely bypass it so they had to deal with it. That’s literally all there is to it.
It become a symbol for Ukranian resistance or Russian incompetence, however you wanna look at it. But once news was so widespread that even Russians knew about it; Putin was not going to stop. He desperately needed the W to sell to the idiots at home. Now thats been accomplished, it won't matter if they have to retreat in a couple of weeks.
>Retreat
When Ukraine surrounds Bakhmut, the Russians inside will die.
I'd say they will do a "move of good gesture" again
>russian file name
Vanya, you won't get you pay check if you'll that lazy.
What does it look like on the inside?
you have videos on RT but they could be just propaganda, they look like the average new commieblock in Western Europe, without the pools and shit like that that you can find in the South.
I'll never forget when the vatniks boasted about taking a "Ukranian Super Fortress" and they showed the image and it was like four or five apartment buildings clustered together. After months of fighting.
Truly the second army in the world.
The city is a defensible location, you can defend from a city with less forces than somewhere else on the front.
This was why Ukraine was trying to hold it, even if not particularly strategically significant, it is a good place to defend from asymmetrically.
In theory by capturing it, it makes Russian lines more defensible and frees up forces to put somewhere else on the front.
Of course they lost many troops and a lot of equipment, and spent a lot of Ammunition taking it, so in the short term it could actually be detrimental to Russian force economy.
But over the long term it could make their lines more strategically sound.
Personally, I think the fact that Russia has managed to finish this operation before the Ukrainian counter offensive starts is not great news, since the offensive to take the city was using a lot of Russian units that are now free to do other things.
However I do not know the real situation on the ground in terms of Russian morale, supply and force concentration, or the plans for Ukraine's counter offensive, so it could not matter that much.
One thing I will say, is that with the town basically destroyed, it will confer less of a Defensive advantage to the Russians as it did the Ukrainians before them.
They will likely be more vulnerable to reconnaissance and fires from the surrounding hills for example.
I doubt Russia will be transferring any forces out of Bakhmut any time soon. They staked so much propaganda at taking the city, they absolutely cannot afford it being retaken by Ukraine.
>They staked so much propaganda at taking the city, they absolutely cannot afford it being retaken by Ukraine.
Just like they couldn't afford to have Kherson get retaken? One advantage of having a well-developed propaganda machine and a sub-90 IQ population is that you can feed them any kind of bullshit whatsoever and most will just buy it no questions asked.
>Annexation
Bakhmut acted as a buffer against that, which is why the Ukrainian's like Zele were crying about how important it was. Now with the city being taken 100%, the surrounding areas are already being retreated like Khomove.
no, you're projecting how important this is to you onto everyone else, zelensky crying to congress is irrelevant, what matters is this war has mindbroken you to such an extent that you're willing to call this a victory, none of you would have dared talk about something like this taking so long at the beginning of the war, your lack of success has made you so desperate that this is what you're clinging onto now, you were told from the very beginning of this battle how unimportant it was, and you completely agreed with the ukrainians that it wouldnt take very long back then. what happened?
also please ignore what's happening to the flanks of bahkmut right now.
Just to say mission accomplished, and they they'll lose it again. Its literally Stalingrad all over again, but this time the Vatniks are the Nazis
Russian forces can now occupy it defensively, which makes retaking harder for a depleted Ukrainian army.
Unless the Ukrainians fucking surround them.
They can start closing the cauldron
This is an old fucking map
I know, Bakhmut is not in red
You stupid uneducated moron, what are you gaining from posting old maps when fucking Izyum is no longer under Puccian control?
none, slavs just need a city to fight over.
>controlling the ruins of Bakhmut
They've got to actually control them first. Even in the video where Priggy goes
>We've liberated it!
There is gunfire and explosions in the background. Coinkydinky they also haven't taken images of themselves next to the famous aircraft statue where the Ukrainians were last dug in. Almost like he is lying, saw the flanks collapsing, decided he had 'legally taken it' and thus fulfilled his contract with the Kremlin, backed out and when Bakhmut is abandoned by Russia due to the encircling that is occurring... he can go
>Well I took it, Russian military lost it! This is the exact thing I was saying! Only Wagner is competent and we would have been in Kiev by now if I got the support I needed
He of course won't say he got unlimited supplies from the start and soon everybody ran out but shhhh.
Propaganda victory, no real significance otherwise. Also, they haven't taken bakhmut anyway, so it isn't even a propaganda victory, just more Russian gayry.
Are you going to rebuild the civilians you deported to siberia as well?
Is there any proof that Russia lost anything of worth in Bakhmut? Trading your shitty convicts for the enemy's professional volunteers doesn't seem like a bad deal tbh.
they lost shitloads of tanks and armored vehicles
lots of wagner fags who were the only ones willing to fight
we didn't want that land anyway... t. pro-ukrainians
we didn't want those fierce soldiers willing to fight to the death anyway... t. pro-russians
I call these the cope wars
That's what I've been calling this dumbass slavic slapfight since it kicked off. Just because I like making fun of Russian retardation doesn't mean I believe a single word out of any Ukrainians mouth about how it's going.
This. I love seeing vatmorons get their shit pushed in but it's still slav vs slav at the end of the day.
>Is there any proof that Russia lost anything of worth in Bakhmut?
Beyond the thousands of tons of critical ammunition and the thousands of bodies? I think a better question is what exactly Russia thinks it gained by spending so much effort there.
I can't believe how hard vatniks celebrate this but quietly forgot how Russia left Kherson
>Unironically, can someone explain to me what the actual strategic advantage of controlling the ruins of Bakhmut is for the Russian armed forces?
None
Ignore anyone who says otherwise. They are retarded.
This is also why Strelkov is flinging shit around at the moment
At this point, the only strategic advantage to taking Bakhmut - when or if they actually do - will be forcing Ukraine to dedicate some force to take it back again. The safer but more difficult way to do that would be encirclement and siege, which Ukraine may or may not be attempting to achieve due to local counter-attacks on the outskirts of the city.
This assumes the units in Bakhmut, and those supposedly being sent there, remain reliable and willing to tenaciously resist.
I imagine the Russians will be exhausted from taking Bakhmut in the first place. I doubt they'll withstand a prolonged siege.
peak copium