The stakes around the embattled Ukrainian city of Bakhmut are higher than ever for Moscow following the Wagner Group mutiny as the Kremlin stares down Kyiv’s counteroffensive, HCSS strategic analyst Frederik Mertens says in Newsweek.
The Wagner Group’s revolt on June 24 has “transformed the importance of Bakhmut for the Russians,” according to Frederik Mertens, a strategic analyst with the Hague Center for Security Studies. It may also become a key factor in the success of Ukraine’s concerted push along their eastern and southern front lines, he said.
Bakhmut’s significance has always been more symbolic than strategic, military analysts have said.
And it was the city where the role of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, operating under Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, was most prominent. Prigozhin said in late May that Wagner recruits were pulling out of Bakhmut, although analysts suggested the replacement Chechen and Russian military forces would not fill the gap left by the mercenary fighters.
On June 24, Wagner recruits launched a short-lived armed rebellion and marched towards Moscow. But the revolt abruptly stopped, and it was announced that Prigozhin would head to Belarus under a deal reportedly brokered by Minsk.
Yet as Bakhmut became “the sole spot where the Russian army was still advancing,” it took on an additional “outside political importance,” Mertens told Newsweek. “For Russia, holding Bakhmut has now become an even greater political imperative, and this might just be what Ukraine needs to force Russia to concentrate its operational reserves in the defense of this pile of ruins,” Mertens argued.
Without these troops in other areas of the front line, such as in Zaporizhzhia, this could be a “decisive” advantage in Ukraine’s attempts to break through Russia’s lines, he added. “There is a sound military reason Ukraine is ramping up the pressure around Bakhmut,” Mertens said.
Source: Read the full article by Ellie Cook in Newsweek
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