Ukraine Update: Bakhmut has held Russia back for eight months, but is that enough?

This morning, as it has every morning for the last eight months, Bakhmut holds. The question now is: Has Bakhmut held long enough?

That’s a different questions from “Why is Ukraine fighting in Bakhmut?” or “Should Ukraine withdraw from Bakhmut to save its forces?” Both of those were about the appropriateness of Bakhmut as a theater of combat, and whether Ukraine was causing sufficient damage to the Russian military by remaining in this place to justify its own considerable losses. Months ago, the Ukrainian leadership made it clear that, so far as they were concerned, the answers to these were “Because so long as we keep fighting there, another city is not being destroyed” and a very definite “Yes.”

The constant stream of obituaries that finish with “in fighting near Bakhmut” makes it clear that the cost of holding this city has been very, very high. And there are some indications that Ukraine is backing away from the city, removing some of its forces from the cauldron at the center—yes, for real this time. However, that pull back may not be directly in response to what Wagner Group is doing this week. In fact, it may be the other way around. Wagner may be advancing because Urkaine is pulling back. Right on schedule.

Back in February, one of the soldiers inside the city wrote this on a Telegram post: “Our task from the beginning of the year: ‘Hold Bakhmut until the beginning of April.” Similar messages targeted “mid-April.” Last month, Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed to be aware that something was coming around the same date, warning that April was the date for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive. 

Now it’s mid-April, and Ukraine may be withdrawing from the streets of Bakhmut. But are they ready to conduct the counteroffensive that could make all the sacrifice in the city worth it?