Better focus on new offense
USA: Kyiv should not fixate on Bakhmut
1/21/2023 1:33 am
Russian troops have been trying to conquer Bakhmut for months. Ukraine is fiercely defending the small town. According to Washington, however, Kyiv should invest time and resources in planning a new counteroffensive. Bachmut has no war-decisive importance.
According to a high-ranking US official, Ukraine should not fixate on defending the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but use the time to prepare a counteroffensive against Russian troops. The focus on defending Bakhmut is preventing Ukraine from concentrating on the more important task of preparing a spring offensive, the government official said on Friday.
In the long run, Russia would have an advantage in the battle for Bakhmut simply because of the numerical superiority of its troops and artillery resources. However, a possible capture of the city by Russia would not represent a significant change in the war because Ukrainian troops could withdraw to well-protected positions, the US official said.
Instead of sacrificing soldiers and ammunition in the fight for a strategically unimportant target, the US government is advising Ukraine to reorganize its troops and use US-led training programs to send a sophisticated and heavily armed force on an offensive in the south of the country to be able to Appropriate weapons for a spring offensive are currently being sent to Ukraine, including several hundred armored vehicles in the past few days alone, the government representative said.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby made a similar statement. The notorious Russian mercenary group Wagner is currently “literally throwing its fighters into a meat grinder” in order to conquer Bakhmut and the neighboring town of Soledar, he said on Friday. However, a conquest of the two cities by Russian troops would not decisively change “the dynamics on the battlefield”. Ukraine would not suddenly fall behind if they lost Bachmut, Kirby said.
According to a report in the news magazine “Spiegel”, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is concerned about the high losses suffered by the Ukrainian army in the battle for Bakhmut. The magazine referred to information that the BND had provided to security politicians in the Bundestag in a secret meeting. Accordingly, the Ukrainian army is currently losing a three-digit number of soldiers every day in the fighting with the Russian invaders for the city.