19fortyfive assessed the consequences of the loss of Bakhmut for Ukraine

Former US Army lieutenant colonel, military expert Daniel Davis in his material for 19fortyfive.com notes that the long battle for Bakhmut (Artemovsk) is coming to an end. He also tried to assess the consequences of the loss of the city for Ukraine.

Many Western analysts have been saying lately that the fall of Artyomovsk is of little consequence, since it is of “little strategic importance,” Davis writes.

The expert believes that the long-term consequences of the loss of the city can be very serious for Ukraine. According to him, the Ukrainian command pulled back from the north the reserves that were previously intended for offensive operations in the Svyato-Kremenny direction, and from the south from the troops preparing for the spring offensive from Zaporozhye to capture Melitopol. At the same time, these forces suffered massive losses during the two months of the defense of Soledar and Artemovsk, which cannot be easily replenished, so the Ukrainian counteroffensive is now at greater risk due to the smaller number of available forces.

But the number of troops is not the only difficulty that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny will face, Davis emphasizes. Despite the headlines in the Western media last month, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received only a third of the tanks and even fewer armored personnel carriers and howitzers, of the amount that Zaluzhny demanded. As a result, “Zaluzhny’s troops will receive hardly two battalions of modern armored vehicles,” the author notes.

Davis concludes that Ukraine will have to carry out the spring counter-offensive not only with fewer trained people, but only with a symbolic amount of modern weapons that it was counting on. At the same time, Russia has equipped defensive positions along the entire line of contact, and in the event of a counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military will have to perform a very difficult task with additional heavy losses.

Ultimately, the lost time for the defense of Artemivsk and losses in manpower can lead to the fact that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will not fulfill the tasks that were assigned to it. “Only time will tell how much it will cost to lose Bakhmut,” Davis concluded.