When the troops of the Wagner Group took the town of Krasna Hora in mid-February and especially when they entered the Azom steel works just a month later, the messages in the US press were very clear, almost to excess. As he Washington Post As the Wall Street Journal As the New York Times began to publish opinion articles and reports on the front in which the situation in Bakhmut was depicted as dramatic and the decision of the Ukrainian high command to remain in the area was described as a very serious mistake instead of going back towards Chasiv Yar.
The effort of such varied media to criticize a decision by the Ukrainian military, given how well the Ukrainian military had done with its decisions, made one think of shared information: someone in the Pentagon who was very angry. A month later, we know that it was. Leaks of secret US defense and NATO documents that have reached various outlets confirm that, despite public support from General Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Arlington they were beyond disgusted with the decisions of Zelenski, Zaluzhnyi and Syrskyi.
Although these leaks have to be placed in a reasonable quarantine —no media has been able to verify their origin, only point to their credibility—, at this point what is leaked to the related press is followed step by step. According to the papers reviewed, The United States considered in February that the defense of Bakhmut was impossiblethat it was a waste of time and men, that the risk was enormous and that, furthermore, it hindered a possible subsequent counteroffensive, by wasting ammunition and human lives in a lost fight.
Aerial view of the US Pentagon.
In fact, there are multiple sources that point in these documents to an enormous suspicion of the Pentagon in the face of the supposed Ukrainian counteroffensive this spring-summer. According to the information revealed in these papers, Ukraine would have a problem mobilizing men and, above all, it would lack sufficient weapons to push the Russian troops towards its border on both the eastern and southern front, considering the advance towards it very complicated. Crimea that the Ukrainian high command dreams of.
A simple calculation error?
If there is something suspicious in these documents, beyond the fact that it is not possible to verify that they are indeed part of real conversations and reports by Pentagon and NATO officials, it is that, in all of them, the United States and Ukraine look bad. They are a true dream for the Kremlin, which makes one think, at least, of an interested leak or, directly, a cyberattack. Not only would Zaluzhnyi’s army be about to implode, but American intelligence would have been engaged in spy on allies like South Koreaa country that has immediately come out to say that what is published is subject to manipulation, just as the British Ministry of Defense has done.
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[EEUU y Corea del Sur dicen que “gran parte” de los papeles del Pentágono filtrados son “inventados”]
In any case, it’s hard to know which is worse: that someone has leaked false information and the media have made it public… or that the information is true, but responds to a totally wrong interpretation of what is happening on the front lines. The case of Bakhmut is undoubtedly significant: not only was there no clamping between Khromove and Ivanivske, nor was there any massacre of the resistant troops, but Russia, despite the interaction of some of the best units of the Wagner Group with its own of the regular army, still does not control the eastern part of the city.
Even at the cost of completely destroying what was home to 75,000 people before the start of the war, the russians fail to take over a square that continues to be hostile to them. In fact, since they crossed the Bakhmutka River last week, the positions have barely changed. Two months after the fall of Krasna Hora and three months after the seizure of the Soledar mines, Russia continues to advance meter by meter. The road linking the eastern part of the city to the hub of Chasiv Yar remains open, albeit under heavy shelling. Probably, one day Bakhmut will completely fall into the hands of invaders… but by then it will be little more than a handful of useless ruins.
The funeral of Kostiantyn Starovytskyi, a conductor who was killed in action this April.
What to expect from the offense
In that sense, there is nothing to suggest that Bakhmut’s defense could influence the imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive. There have not been excessive casualties and Russia has lost the possibility of establishing a point of attack on the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk axis. To this we must add the continuous failures in the advance attempts of the rest of the front, from Kupiansk to Vuhledar, passing through Avdivka, Kreminna or Svatove. The positions are practically the same as four months agowhen Russia began a second offensive that has barely materialized on conquered ground.
That being said, can Ukraine score notable success in their next offensive? Beyond the doubts expressed in the leaks, there is an evident lack of consensus among international experts. The ammunition and men problems are there. It escapes no one that, once the positions are consolidated, in order to break an enemy line, superiority is needed that neither of the two parties currently demonstrates. It can only be hoped that the arrival of international aid will unbalance that balance. Just as no one foresaw the fall of southeast Kharkov or northeast Kherson, Ukraine may have aces up its sleeve that we are unaware of right now.
Volodimir Zelenski, Ukrainian president, on a visit to the ranks of the north-west.
The person who should best know the exact balance of forces, or so it has shown since even before the start of the Russian invasion, is the Pentagon, but these documents, if true, indicate a striking confusion. Be that as it may, it is most likely that we will have to wait until May or June to see a real change of initiative in the war. By then, the mud will have cleared from the roads and both sides will have prepared for the next move. Whoever first finds the decisive men and weapons that are currently in short supply will find themselves with a huge advantage before them.
