Battle for Bakhmut Over - Prison Conscripts Defeat NATO

 After 11 months Russia's private military contractor (PMC) aka mercenary army known as Wagner PMC led by the former chef and restaurant owner Yevgeny Prigozhin has defeated NATO in the battle for Bakhmut.  On Saturday 20th May 2023 at 12 noon local time, Prigozhin addressed the world from Bakhmut announcing the take over of all parts of the city which they had engaged for over 11 months. 

It is also a substantial blow for the NATO countries who had accused Wagner of using prisoners from Russian jails as conscript soldiers. If so it would seem that prisoners make better soldiers than NATO's own troops. The Ukrainian Army was fully trained by Nato according to Nato standards and were armed with Nato weapons. They were all defeated by 'conscript prisoners'. 

Here is a two minute plus video:

 

 

The entire Bakhmut engagement, over 11 months, was a brilliant piece of strategy, backed by General Surovikhin the Russian Army's ground commander in Ukraine who used Bakhmut as a set-piece battleground to trap and annihilate the Ukrainian forces.

This was a very unusual strategy which has surprisingly worked in the 21st century, possibly inspired by Sun Tzu's Art of War, which is required reading for Russian military officers. Until the very end the Russians always made sure that some roads were left open to allow the Ukrainians to move in more troops, ammunition and equipment. Which the Ukrainians complied with, quite inexplicably, only to face annihilation. It was a terrible sacrifice of their young men by president Zelenskiy of Ukraine, without a care for their lives. The Ukrainian people will one day hold Zelenskiy responsible for this mass annihilation of their young men.

The other thing to note about Bakhmut was the extremely very low level of civilians killed or injured. The Russians had earlier on evacuated tens of thousands of people (Russian speakers and others) away from Bakhmut. The city had been almost completely devoid of civilians for the past year. Hence civilian casualties were minimal, although even one death is too many already.

Similarly around early April (last month) President Vladimir Putin ordered the evacuation of 70,000 civilians away from Zaporizhia to the south-west of Bakhmut. This may provide an indication where the next combat zones will develop. 

When the war started last year Mr Putin had also ordered the evacuation of over 16,000 children away from the combat zones to safe areas across the border in Russia. For this humanitarian act Britain has goaded the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant of arrest against Mr Putin for "kidnapping 16,000 children".  However no ransom notes have been received from Mr Putin yet (for the release of the children, he wants to keep them!!)

The loss of Bakhmut could be the watershed moment the world is waiting for in this British American war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine was actually over last year when the Russians overran the four eastern oblasts in the Donetsk. They even drove all the way to Kiev (and then withdrew). But Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to instruct Zelenskiye to keep fighting. Because the Brits knew they were going to blow up the Nordstream pipeline going into Germany. Target : Germany.

There will be a conclusion to this - it looks like it will happen soon after this.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.