For six months now, the small town of Bakhmut is the center of attention in the Ukrainian war. An industrial town of 70’000 people before the war, has become a “meat grinder” where thousands of men from both sides are thrown into the fire of war. In many ways, Bakhmut symbolizes the war in Ukraine today.In Bakhmut, Russia and Ukraine are locked in a war of attrition. All sides seem determined to continue a war in which thousands of young soldiers are sacrificed, for unrealistic objectives. Political will to end the war is lacking, which makes any ceasefire agreement difficult to achieve.
Many Western analysts have repeatedly said that Bakhmut does not represent enough strategic importance for the military resources deployed. They often say that Bakhmut has become a symbol that the Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to show as a sign of victory. Militarily, therefore, the Russian sacrifices do not match with the significance of the town. The problem with this analysis is that the Ukrainian side too is investing large resources for its defense. If the Russian decision to fight a war of attrition is looked down as “stupidity” then the same Ukrainian decision to fight in Bakhmut is described as a “mistake”.
The problem with the above analysis is a misunderstanding of the stage of the current war: unlike the February Russian offensive, and the Ukrainian counter offensive in Kharkiv and Kherson in the summer, the war is no more mobile and rapid attacks with the aim of rapid victory, but now it is a war of attrition aiming to destroy large number of enemy troops and material. In this new phase of the war, it does not matter much if it takes place in Bakhmut or elsewhere.
Changing War Aims
What is the link between the battle for Bakhmut with the overall war aims?
The goals of the war have shifted several times. Putin’s initial war aims, as he defined in his February 21, 2022, speech, just before the invasion of Ukraine began, was the dismantling of Ukrainian statehood and its subjugation to Russia. The thesis put forward by Putin was that Ukraine is not a proper nation, therefore did not deserve its own sovereignty. Moreover, Putin regards democratic changes taking place in Ukraine as hostile, but also essentially sees it as a sign of anarchy and weakness. Hence, the Russian invasion was supposed to be short and easy. In a matter of few days, it became clear to the Russian leadership how wrong this conceptualization was.
Already in spring 2022 there were negotiations going on between Russia and Ukraine about a possible ceasefire. The conditions back then was that the sides would keep their grounds, stop military operations, and open the way to further political negotiations. Putin had changed his war aims: now that the whole of Ukraine was not possible to occupy, he wanted eastern and southern Ukraine. The September 2022 “referendums” to annex Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts belatedly reflected this revised Russian war aim. But they came too late: by then Ukraine was on the counter-offensive, and the spring negotiations were already dead.
On the other hand, Ukrainian war aims moved from demanding immediate cease-fire to returning to February 24 positions, to demanding the liberation of the entire Ukrainian territories, that is beyond the February 24 line including eastern regions of Donbas and Crimea that was annexed by Russia in 2014.
Winning the War and Negotiating with Russia
The much-announced Russian winter offensive did not go too far to the west of the initial frontline. It is always risky to predict the future, yet the much-anticipated Ukrainian spring offensive might not go too far to the east, at least not far enough to make a difference in the current war. Still, the cost of months of fighting is tens of thousands of casualties, from both sides.
There is a debate in Europe whether it is possible to negotiate with Putin. The problem put forward is that Putin cannot be trusted, and that a ceasefire will only allow Putin to regain forces and attack again. The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Putin is yet another step that will block possibilities of negotiating with Putin.
The opposite argument can also be made that the war has “empowered” Putin, who needs this war more than anyone else because it justifies his failures, and it legitimizes his war as an act of “self-defense” against an aggressive West collectively willing to dismantle Russia.
Yet, Putin already lost this war. Not only he failed in his own aggression in Ukraine by an erroneous, ideological reading of Ukrainian reality, but this failure destroyed the foundations of his legacy: Putin came to power after a decade and a half of political turmoil and an economic downfall. When Putin came to power in the year 2000 he made a deal with the oligarchs: give away your political ambitions and enjoy limitless hedonistic life with private jets and real estate in London and Côte d’Azur. He made a similar deal with the Russian populace; while he confiscated their newly achieved political freedoms, he promised in return economic stability and to reestablish Russia’s lost glory. All this was wrapped up with a nationalistic discourse the essence of which was that Russia was strong because it had a strong army.
The failed war in Ukraine exposed the emptiness of Putin’s propaganda: not only the Russian army is disorganized and technologically backward, but also Putin destroyed the consumerist consensus with his oligarchs, and socio-economic stability back home. Any cease-fire will expose the defeat of political Putinism, rather than enable him to prepare a new offensive.