For several months, the occupiers have not been able to achieve their goals in Bakhmut, which has become a fortress city.

Mykhailo Samus, a military expert and director of international affairs at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Research, commented on the statements of the Western media that the Russians are transferring their troops from Bakhmut to Soledar. He believes that if this is true, it means that they are not able to achieve their goals under the fortress city, which has been heroically defended by Ukrainian defenders for several months.

On the air of the national telethon, Samus did not rule out that the occupiers decided to shift the emphasis to other directions and try to break through the Ukrainian defenses there. At the same time, he expressed confidence that the Russian occupiers will not be able to do this, since they currently do not have any tool that could knock the strategic and operational-tactical initiative out of the hands of Ukrainian soldiers.

At the same time, according to him, the Russians cannot afford an operational pause in the Bakhmut direction, as this is not an operational direction, but a tactical one. It was chosen by the Russian command or the leader of the “Wagner” PMK Yevgeny Prigozhin as his personal project. He wanted to demonstrate to them that his private army is more effective than the Russian armed forces. However, it did not work out.

“This was only a tactical direction, where they wanted to demonstrate that they can advance. They (the command of the Russian army – ed.) need an operational pause, a strategic one – to actually stop any active combat operations on the entire front and get one or two months for that , in order to carry out a new mobilization, create new reserves and try to form new groups of troops that could conduct several large operations, say, with Belarus, as they have long dreamed of, or in other directions to prevent active offensive actions by the Ukrainian army, which, obviously, they are being planned,” he emphasized.

The situation in the Bakhmut direction

Losses of the assault groups of the occupiers in Bakhmut in Donetsk region amount to 80%. Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander of the 3rd battalion “Freedom” in the 4th brigade of the NGU, said that the wounded invaders were left to die in the cold.

At the same time, the Institute for the Study of War emphasizes that the leader of the Wagnerites, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is preparing information conditions to blame Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Russian military-industrial complex for the failures at Bakhmut. Thus, the statements of the “Wagnerians” about the lack of ammunition and difficulties with the breakthrough of the defense of the Armed Forces are aimed at removing from Prigozhin personal responsibility for the failure of the battles.

Earlier, British intelligence said that the frequency of infantry attacks by Russian invaders in the Bakhmut area has decreased. Now they are conducted only at the platoon or division level. Ukraine has sent significant reinforcements to protect the sector.