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Comment by throwaway4good | Hacker News Reader

I thought the Russians controlled most of Bakhmut now?

I don’t understands it’s value though. The city is completely destroyed as far as I can see from all the videos that are coming out from there.

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The Ukrainians are inflicting heavy losses on the Russian side (including Wagner mercenaries) without taking losses that are nearly as heavy. The Russian side are just throwing lots of soldiers and machinery into badly-placed offenses so they’re playing into the Ukrainians’ hands as the Ukrainians continue to degrade their army. The crucial difference is that the Ukrainians, alongside being much more motivated, are being much, much smarter in terms of logistics.

If you’re interested in this kind of thing I highly recommend following Phillips O’Brien on Twitter, who’s a professor of strategic studies at St Andrews university and has been calling things very well since the beginning of the war: https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien

Phillips O'Brien? He claims on Twitter Russia is the most likely candidate for blowing up the Nordstream pipeline. He's just a "Security services stenographer".

Who caused that is still an open question that no-one really has the answer to, so I'm not sure why you're so confident. One of the things that makes me trust O'Brien over others is that he generally admits when he's been wrong and openly reviews his past views in light of new evidence.

> The Ukrainians are inflicting heavy losses on the Russian side (including Wagner mercenaries) without taking losses that are nearly as heavy.

Have in mind that

1) These numbers are unreliable (although most likely in Ukrainian’s favour) 2) Numbers are not equal: 10 poorly trained Russian soldiers are not comparable to 1 elite Ukrainian sniper

Both true, but that doesn't mean the central point isn't correct, particularly when it comes to materiel.

> The Ukrainians are inflicting heavy losses on the Russian side (including Wagner mercenaries) without taking losses that are nearly as heavy.

IIRC, the Ukrainian losses are still pretty heavy. Most other countries have advised them to stop squandering resources trying to hold it, because they think that could undermine their spring offensive.

Absolutely. Just because Ukranian losses are less than the Russians certainly doesn’t mean Ukranian losses aren’t considerable.

At this point the value is mostly just symbolic. Russians control most of Bakhmut now but Ukrainians still hold a small piece. At the beginning of the war it had some value as a logistics hub but everything of value was destroyed months ago.

For the Ukrainians, it's a place to stall and bleed out Russian offensive capability while the Ukrainians their western-trained forces and equipment for the offensive they're planning.

For the Russians, it's a place to achieve concentration of force and use artillery to attrit large numbers of Ukrainian troops, as well as a chance to break Ukrainian defensive lines and capture a major logistical hub - opening the way to advance on Slovyansk-Kramatorsk.

The value of Bakhmut is that it is/was defensible and the Russian losses topped Ukraine losses.

There is talk about a 9-1 ratio, but i think a 5-1 ratio to be more real.

Ukraine seems quick to retreat when those ratios are not favorable.

Ofc, this is guessing. There could be more to it, eg. Russians could advance faster if Bakhmut is conquered.

Additionally, it's more useful to fend off the invaders in an already destroyed city instead of letting them advance to another ( probably inhabited and more intact) city.

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