Bakhmut defence is "strategically sound" effort – ISW

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that the Ukrainian defence of Bakhmut is a strategically sound operation, in spite of the price that the Ukrainian side has been paying.  

Source: ISW report from 21 January 2023

Quote from the ISW: "The Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut is likely a strategically sound effort despite its costs for Ukraine. While the costs associated with Ukraine’s continued defense of Bakhmut are significant and likely include opportunity costs related to potential Ukrainian counter-offensive operations elsewhere, Ukraine would also have paid a significant price for allowing Russian troops to take Bakhmut easily.

Bakhmut itself is not operationally or strategically significant but had Russian troops taken it relatively rapidly and cheaply they could have hoped to expand operations in ways that could have forced Ukraine to construct hasty defensive positions in less favorable terrain."

Details: The ISW stressed that Ukrainian troops have previously relied on a similar gradual attrition model to compel Russian operations in certain areas to culminate in pursuit of marginal tactical gains after months of suffering high personnel and equipment losses.

"Russian troops spent months attempting to grind through effective Ukrainian defenses in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the early summer of 2022 and captured Lysychansk only after a controlled Ukrainian withdrawal from the area. The capture of Lysychansk and the Luhansk Oblast administrative border, however, quickly proved to be operationally insignificant for Russian forces, and the ultimate result of the Ukrainian defense of the area was the forced culmination of the Russian offensive in Luhansk Oblast, leading to the overall stagnation of Russian offensive operations in Donbas in the summer and fall of 2022," the ISW report said.

The report went on to suggest that Ukrainian defence of Bakhmut will likely contribute to a similar result, since Russian forces have been funneling manpower and equipment into the area since May 2022 and have yet to achieve any operationally significant advances that seriously threaten the Ukrainian defence of the area.

The ISW believes that Ukrainian forces are effectively holding back Russian troops and equipment in Bakhmut, thus inhibiting Russia's ability to pursue offensives on other fronts.

Previously: Ukraine should not focus on defending the city of Bakhmut at all costs and instead use a window of opportunity to prepare a major counter-offensive against Russian forces in the country's south, an anonymous senior US official told AFP on 20 January.

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