By taking Bakhmout, Russia inherited a field of ruins. UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES / REUTERS
DECRYPTION – After ten months of fighting, Wagner claims the capture of Bakhmout. A certain tactical success, despite the high losses, but which is far from presaging a total conquest of the Donbass by the Russians.
One year to the day after the conquest of Mariupol by Russian troops, Wagner’s fighters claimed responsibility for Bakhmout on Saturday May 20. A success with a bitter taste, both the excess of energy and the losses generated reflect a ‘pyrrhic victoryfor the Prigozhin mercenaries. Because they fought for nearly 10 months to overcome this small town in Donbass, populated by barely 70,000 inhabitants before the war, where it had taken less than three months for the Russians to seize Mariupol, a vast coastal city of 400,000 inhabitants.
If Ukraine has not officially confirmed the loss of Bakhmout, Vladimir Putin “congratulated the Wagner units as well as all the servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces who provided them with the necessary support“, in a press release. At the time of the assessment, this conquest undeniably represents a Russian success. But the forces left in the battle are immense, and the prospects for capitalization seem limited.
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