Russia’s claim of victory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut suggests that the brutal urban combat that marked the deadliest battle of its war in Ukraine might be over. But what comes next is far from clear.
While Moscow is trumpeting a “Mission Accomplished” moment in its war, Ukraine — even as it insists Bakhmut has not completely fallen — sees an opening to seize the initiative from the city’s outskirts if Russian forces are no longer pressing forward inside the city’s center.
Russia’s capture of Bakhmut would be a powerful symbolic success for Moscow. It would represent the first Ukrainian city it has seized since Lysychansk last summer, and be a setback for Kyiv, which expended precious ammunition and sent some of its most capable forces to try to thwart Russia’s devastating monthslong assault on the city. Thousands of troops from both sides are believed to have been killed in nearly a year of intense fighting there.
But the city is now in ruins, and controlling it would not necessarily help Moscow toward its larger stated goal — conquering the entire eastern region of Donbas — now that Ukrainian troops have worn out Russian forces and broken through their defenses in some areas to the city’s north and south.
Now that Russia has seemingly taken the city, it must hold it.