The battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is over, for now.
After 10 months of brutal artillery duels, frantic troop advances and thousands of Russian and Ukrainian casualties, Moscow's formations control the industrial center, while Kiev's troops try to press on the city's flanks.
But it is unclear what awaits Russia, which has claimed that its goal is to capture the entire eastern Donbas region.
A Ukrainian tanker shows a victory sign at his position near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Early in the battle, Moscow hoped to use the capture of Bakhmut as a springboard to further advance westward, with the aspiration of reaching the larger cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
For now, that goal seems unattainable.
Russian troops appear exhausted, military analysts say, after suffering heavy losses in Bakhmut's security.
And overall, President Vladimir V. Putin's forces have shown little ability to seize more territory elsewhere, having been relegated mostly to smaller-scale attacks in a handful of cities in the country's east.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has trained new formations, armed and equipped by the West, and is expected to launch a broader counteroffensive somewhere along the roughly 1000,<>-kilometer front line.
Undisclosed location (Ukraine), 23/05/2023.- Members of the 10th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade "Edelweiss", a unit of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, rest at an undisclosed location in the direction of Bakhmut. EFE EPA - OLEG PETRASYUK
This has Russia in a kind of defensive squat, with its forces stretched, as they build fortifications and prepare for the next phase of the war.
"We'll probably see more localized tactical assaults," said Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, referring to Russian forces.
"But Russia is likely to focus primarily on defense and prepare for Ukraine's counteroffensive."
Russian forces have spent much of the winter and spring entrenching themselves and preparing for attack on Ukraine, although some units have continued to attack in areas such as Kreminna, north of Bakhmut, and Avdiivka, to the south.
These assaults have gained little ground for the Russians, who instead have decimated the population centers in their path while depleting their own ranks.
In the south, which some military analysts predict will be the center of the Ukrainian offensive, Russian forces have dug an intricate network of primary and secondary trench lines and minefields tothwart any Ukrainian advances, according to satellite photos and analysts.
According to analysts, if Ukraine manages to regain territory, Russian air forces, much larger than Russian ones, could have an advantage as Ukrainian troops advance, out of range of their air defenses.
Further southwest, Ukraine now has the southern port city of Kherson, recaptured in November.
However, with the Dnipro River as a natural border, Russian artillery units can bombard the city from the eastern side with little risk of being overrun by Ukrainian ground forces, given the difficulty of crossing a wide and exposed waterway.
To the north, Ukraine-backed proxy units have penetrated the Russian border in recent days, seizing a small plot of territory in what is seen as a propaganda stunt to tie up Russian forces and embarrass the Kremlin after the capture of Bakhmut.
Costs
But the battle for Bakhmut came at a significant cost to Russia and Ukraine and will weigh heavily on what comes next.
Both sides invested large amounts of men and materiel to take and hold a relatively small and now devastated city, which before the war had a population of over 70,000.
Such is the nature of this 15-month-long war:
Both armies, still anchored in Soviet-style tactics, still rely heavily on artillery, tanks, and limited troop advances to seize and control terrain.
"The battle for Bakhmut is less important in terms of territory and more because of its impact on both forces and what it reveals about them," said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va.
Russian forces were defeated on three fronts last year:
around Kiev, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv and in Kherson. Moscow is guarding its exhausted and casualty-ridden formations following the brutal urban combat of Bakhmut.
Ukraine is also plagued by casualties, but is entrenching itself in much more favorable and elevated terrain outside Bakhmut.
In recent days, Ukrainian forces have made small advances north and south of Bakhmut, putting their forces in a better position to prevent Russian troops from advancing further.
The head of the Wagner paramilitary force, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, whose fighters were mainly responsible for the capture of Bakhmut, has promised to withdraw them from the city and hand over their defense to the Russian uniformed ranks, risking a disorganized relief of the troops.
Wagner "isn't really designed for defensive operations," Lee said.
Mr. Prigozhin's Wagner group has proven to be one of Ukraine's most formidable enemies and it remains unclear how its departure from the battlefield might affect Ukraine's ability to pressure Bakhmut and beyond.
Military analysts, Western intelligence agencies and Ukrainian officials have been arguing for months about the strategic importance of Bakhmut's campaign.
Moscow could have invested the resources elsewhere on the front instead of wasting lives and ammunition on a few kilometers of terrain, they said.
Kiev could have withdrawn earlier, saving its battalions, brigades and supplies for future offensives.
Decisions by both sides to stand firm and fight will have lasting effects on their future maneuvers.
The Battle of Bakhmut was unique in that the Wagner group relied on prisoner formations to attack Ukrainian trenches, both to overwhelm their defenses and to expose Ukrainian firing positions.
Russia's ability to replenish its ranks, often with poorly trained forces, had at one point been one of its advantages, as it has forced Ukraine to risk its best-trained units to stop raw troops that the Russians treated as expendable.
But Ukraine fought back, despite losing ground in the city and suffering a disproportionate number of casualties.
They took advantage of the open fields and groves on the outskirts and used precision artillery suppliedto the West, such as HIMARS rocket launchers and 155mm howitzers, to wound and kill Russian troops from a distance.
Now, Moscow has to decide whether to try to advance west of Bakhmut.
A few kilometers away is the town of Chasiv Yar, but Ukraine can retreat to high ground in between, where it could shoot at advancing Russian troops.
Most likely, the Russians will focus on defending Bakhmut and its approaches.
The aftermath of the battle for Bakhmut is not yet fully known, both in terms of the total number of casualties on both sides and the amount of material or ammunition lost or destroyed.
Western estimates earlier this year put Russian casualties at about 200,000 wounded and killed since its invasion, and those in Ukraine are believed to be similar.
Since then, the fight for Bajmut has claimed thousands more victims.
"This chapter will be closed, even if the fighting continues in the fields on the outskirts of the city, but it says a lot about the Ukrainian will to fight, even if the soldiers wonder if the fight for Bakhmut was due to political rather than military considerations," Kofman said.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a correspondent in Ukraine and a former Marine. @tmgneff
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