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9Quick Explainer: Putin's whims and Russian power politics result in wild swings at Bakhmut [1]
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Date: 2023-04-20
When the full story of the Battle of Bakhmut is written, on the one hand you will find a story of unparalleled heroism of the brave Ukrainians who manned the meatgrinder. Facing the hell and fury of the Russian offensive for months on end as Wagner poured tens of thousands of convicts in human wave attacks and brutal artillery shelling, Ukrainian soldiers demonstrated extreme resilience.
That’s one story of Bakhmut—arguably, the most important story of Bakhmut, regardless of how the battle ends.
But there’s another aspect to the Battle of Bakhmut—a battle whose fortunes have swung literally upon the whims of a indecisive dictator. A dictator who cannot accept that his nation’s armies are incapable of achieving what he wants for them to do, and thus swings erratically between supporting the Army and its domestic rival: Wagner Group.
While to most readers Wagner Group requires no introduction, in brief, Wagner Group is a paramilitary group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2014. Starting with a few hundred members, Wagner was referred to as “Putin’s private army.”
Receiving military equipment from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Government, Wagner Group nonetheless claimed independence from the ministry and the Russian government providing few details of their structure, affiliation or funding in public.
Most analysts saw Wagner as an appendage of the Russian State, allowing it to dispatch a powerful military force into areas where it was politically difficult for the Russian Army to intervene directly. This gave the Russian State plausible deniability, while militarily intervening in conflicts in which Russia saw an interest.
Wagner first appeared in Crimea as Russia began launching it’s full fledged invasion of Ukraine aimed at annexing Crimea. Wagner appeared in Donbas, battling the Ukrainian Army in support of the Russian puppets—the Donbas Separatists.
Wagner also frequently intervened in various conflicts in Africa, in every case operating in the interests of the Russian State.
Wagner grew from just a few hundred soldiers in 2014, to an estimated 8,000 soldiers by 2022 on the even of the Russo-Ukrainian War. This growth, reflecting growing support in arms, munitions and supplies from the Ministry of Defense, represented Putin’s growing support for Wagner and Prigozhin.
At this time, Wagner mercenaries were judged to be of relatively high quality of training. Mostly composed of Russian combat veterans between the ages of 35 to 50 who had been discharged from the Russian military, Wagner mercenaries were given further training and higher pay than Russian infantry, making them a reasonably formidable infantry force. However, Wagner had its limitations such as lacking in heavy or mechanized equipment, or their own logistics chain independent of the Russian Army.
Much of this began to change in late summer 2022. Putin reportedly grew frustrated with the Russian Army’s leadership, whom Putin felt was responsible for the defeats of the Russian Army at the Battle of Kiev (Feb — April 2022) and lackluster returns from the Eastern Offensive (April — June 2022).
The face and highest ranking officer of the conventional Russian Army, Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov went so far as to take personal command over the Russian Army’s thrust at Sloviansk, but failed to make any headway.
Putin’s favor and disfavor can often be inferred from how Russian State Media talks about matters. Julia Davis and Russian Media Monitor closely track the way in which Russian media covers matters: in the early Summer of 2022, some atypically harsh criticism of the Ministry of Defense began appearing in State Media television coverage.
This accelerated with the defeats at Izium and Lyman during the Kharkiv counteroffensive, reaching a deafening roar by early October decrying corruption and incompetence among Russian generals. Popular State TV Host Vladimir Solovyov began suggesting certain Generals deserved to be shot over their failures in Ukraine on Sept 11th.
Putin’s presumed tight control over the State Media narrative was apparently in the careful way in which this criticism was curated.
Criticism was never directed at Putin, or the overall decision to invade Ukraine in the first place.
Focus of criticism was carefully directed at the execution of the invasion, and the corruptness of the officers who stole and made what was an excellent plan approved by Putin that should have succeeded, fail.
Critics were careful to stress Russia’s overall strength, and the corruptness of the West and Ukraine, and generally did not question the wisdom of continuing the fighting or the inevitability of Russian victory.
Putin’s disfavor led to his favoring of non-traditional paramilitary groups, in particular Wagner.
In late August 2022, reports began to circulate on Telegram that Prigozhin was personally recruiting convicts in Russian prisons to fight as part of Wagner.
Recruitment from Russian prisons accelerated, and Wagner grew from around 8,000 soldier to between 40,000~50,000 by early December.
With additional troops and materiel, Wagner essentially took over the larger portion of the responsibility of the Bakhmut offensive. Although the Bakhmut Offensive had essentially started as a push in that direction during the Eastern Ukraine Offensive from April — June 2022, the Wagner centric intense offensive truly heats up during this time.
As Putin’s apparent disfavor with the Russian Army and the Ministry of Defense grew, conversely Putin’s favor for non-traditional military elements like Wagner grew ever higher. Open criticism of ‘incompetence’ by the ministry of defense and the conventional Russian Army was asserted by Wagner affiliated Telegram channels like Grey Zone, and Wagner began asserting the idea that only the Wagner Group can launch successful offensives in Ukraine.
Putin then appoints Wagner-ally Sergey Surovikin as the overall commander of the Russo-Ukrainian War on October 8th. Gen. Surovikin and the commander of Russia’s elite VDV forces, Gen. Mikhail Teplinsky were both Wagner allies and were brought to greater prominence during this period of Putin’s favor for Wagner.
Surovikin and Teplinsky begin aggressively supporting Wagner’s offensive, directing massive amounts of artillery shells to the sector and culminating in the commitment of significant VDV forces by late December to assist Wagner’s push against Soledar. The commitment of these resources was a direct cause of Wagner’s successful push to capture the city, although a flanking maneuver to quick press through and surround Bakhmut that pro-Wagner channels suggested was possible never materialized.
Wagner’s slow progress appears to have begun to annoy Putin. On Jan. 11, 2023, Putin again shifted his stance. Putin appointed the face of the Russian Army’s conventional forces, Valery Gerasimov, as overall commander of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Wagner-ally Sergey Surovikin had been replaced after just 3 months.
Gerasimov’s hostility to Wagner was very quickly apparent. I wrote a diary at the time explaining that the Ministry of Defense was in the process of destroying Wagner, an assessment I still stand by as true at that time.
Around Feb 16th , it was revealed that Wagner could no longer recruit prison convicts, its primary source of recruits.
Since mid Feb , Prigozhin and Wagner soldiers begin complaining loudly of being deprived of equipment and artillery shells in their attacks.
in early March , it was revealed that the Ministry of Defense has ordered Wagner to honor its 6 month contracts with its convicts, and that
This had the effect of preventing Wagner from receiving Wagner, cutting a large proportion of Wagner’s manpower in the coming months through contract completion, and preventing effective offensives through deprivation of artillery shells.
It was obvious that this anti-Wagner campaign was being conducted with Putin’s blessing and Prigozhin appeared to be on the outs. It did not appear that Prigozhin had even been invited to Putin’s speech commemorating the start of the “special operation,” attended by most of the top leaders of the Russian government and military in late February.
Putin had apparently directed Gerasimov to capture all of Donbas by the end of March. The Russian army began a six pronged offensive up and down the Eastern Front, apparently intended to encircle Donbas and bring huge territorial gains that Putin desired. Resources were directed away from Wagner and the Battle of Bakhmut, and reinforcements were sent to Kreminna, Vuhledar, Marinka, and other sectors of the Russian offensive.
Russia stopped committing its VDV reserves to the Battle of Bakhmut, and VDV commander/Wagner ally Gen. Mikhail Teplinsky was removed from his position.
Progress in Bakhmut ground to a crawl, but the hope for the Russian army was that more decisive success might be gained elsewhere. The battlelines at Bakhmut appeared to stabilize as the encirclement offensive ground to a halt and progress inside the city all but stopped for a few weeks.
However, by late March it was obvious that Russia’s Winter Offensive had ended in an abject failure. The Battle of Vuhledar was a fiasco, and the Russian army made little more progress than advancing 3-4km in anywhere but in Bakhmut.
By early April, it was apparent that Putin had again changed course. Wagner was in favor again.
Gerasimov’s order that the 6 month contract for convicts be honored was withdrawn, and instead, contracts were extended to 18 months.
Pro-Wagner VDV commander Gen. Teplinsky was restored to his position of influence and command in early April.
VDV units that were previously held in reserve were committed to the Battle of Bakhmut in large numbers.
Reinforcements and ammunition began to be redirected from the battles fought further south around Donetsk, and priority was given for ammunition and men in Bakhmut.
With this infusion of new resources, Wagner’s offensive within the city of Bakhmut has re-intensified, with Wagner forces advancing into the city center, and pressing the Ukrainian defenders towards the West.
Conclusion
From this narrative, I think you can understand when I say, the Battle of Bakhmut is in many ways an expression of Russia’s wildly swinging policies of favor or disfavor of Wagner and other paramilitary organizations by Putin.
As Putin cannot choose a policy and stick with it, we see wild swings in redirecting of resources by the Russian Army to, or away from Bakhmut depending on whatever policy Putin is favoring in this 3-4 month cycle.
None of this has anything to do with a strategic vision as to Bakhmut’s importance (or non-importance), and is indicative of Russia’s inability to prioritize resources based on rational planning and an honest assessment of their own capabilities.
For example, it has been suggested that Putin strongly desires a victory that he can point to for his Victory Day speech on May 9th, and the commitment of VDV forces to Bakhmut represents such a desire.
While Russia’s VDV forces have been degraded in quality by attrition and lack of trained soldiers, they remain prioritized for the best equipment, tanks and other resources. They remain stronger than the average Russian frontline unit, although VDV units of today may be even weaker than a Russian brigade at the start of the conflict.
Committing these elite reserve troops to a battle that has little strategic value, a few weeks in advance of a major counteroffensive by Ukraine that even the Russians expect is an act of extreme arrogance and shortsightedness.
Elite and mobile reserve troops that could be committed as reinforcements to block a dangerous thrust by Ukraine are instead being fed into the Bakhmut meatgrinder.
But this is highly reflective of the way in which Bakhmut’s priority in Russian military theater strategy has never been particularly reflective of any strategic vision in the first place.
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For anyone who’s interested, I’ve started a new diary series called “History Nugget” where I describe various lesser known historical facts and incidents.
The first article in that series is
History Nugget: No Mail, Low Morale--the black women who became the best postal battalion of WW2
mostly about Ltc. Charity Adams, the only black woman unit commander to lead a battalion deployed overseas during WW2.
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