OPINION:
In May 2022, the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut found itself on the front lines of Russia‘s war of aggression, the unlikely focus of a ferocious offensive by Kremlin forces.
After months of shelling the Donbas city, Wagner Group mercenaries began their assault in August with a force consisting primarily of former convicts recruited for the fight. In a struggle marked by trench warfare, artillery fire and urban combat, both sides suffered high casualties reminiscent of the most deadly and destructive battles of the 20th century’s two world wars.
Just as he was right not to accept a U.S. invitation to flee Kyiv when Russia launched its unprovoked invasion in early 2022 — “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride,” he famously said — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the correct decision to keep his forces in Bakhmut.
When some Western military analysts criticized Ukraine’s strategy, he countered that “there was a clear position of the entire general staff: Reinforce this sector and inflict maximum possible damage upon the occupier.”
The battle for Bakhmut turned out to be extraordinarily valuable to Ukraine as well as NATO: Russia paid a massive strategic price to secure “control” of the city, including an estimated 20,000 casualties for the Wagner Group over the course of the past year.
The tough Ukrainian defense also drove a wedge between Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.
Just last month, before he launched his aborted mutiny and began withdrawing his forces from what Mr. Zelenskyy called a city of “burned ruins,” Mr. Prigozhin admitted that Ukrainian forces still controlled parts of Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s unyielding defense of Bakhmut, which induced Mr. Prigozhin’s costly rebellion back home, has three profound implications for the war.
First, the Wagner Group mutiny is another broadside against Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s lies and propaganda. Russia‘s National Anti-Terrorism Committee opened a criminal case against Mr. Prigozhin after he released a video publicly exposing the Kremlin’s lies and disinformation about why the war in Ukraine was launched.
“The war was not needed to return our Russian citizens and not to demilitarize and ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin said in the video, accusing the defense minister of lying about the number of Russian casualties and accusing Russian “elites” of seeking to steal Ukraine‘s resources.
Mr. Prigozhin’s conflict with Russia‘s military establishment has been years in the making, reportedly over competition in Syria and Africa, where the regular troops and the mercenaries were supposed to be working in tandem. As Wagner Group casualties mounted in Bakhmut, Mr. Prigozhin bluntly accused Mr. Shoigu and Ukraine campaign commander Gen. Valery Gerasimov of purposely denying his private army the supplies, military equipment and ammunition needed to carry on the fight.
Mr. Putin likely considers Mr. Prigozhin and his mercenaries something of a virus, one that has infected regular Russian units. (It’s telling that rebelling Wagner Group forces last month were able to occupy the Rostov Military District, responsible for wartime operations in Ukraine, without firing a shot during their brief uprising.)
Russians might not believe the Western media, but as one of their own who served on the front lines, Mr. Prigozhin was a highly effective messenger for some hard truths about Mr. Putin’s failed war.
The result: a further degradation in morale among Russian soldiers and civilians, who must be questioning — as Mr. Prigozhin does — how the Kremlin could needlessly spill so much blood and treasure in a misguided war.
Second, Mr. Putin must now devote some of his dwindling resources to vetting the loyalty of his army, defense ministry and security services. Russia’s Federal Security Service has reportedly already raided Mr. Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency office in St. Petersburg.
Third, for all its vices, the Wagner Group proved a highly effective fighting force, and its absence from the battlefield in Ukraine will leave Russia’s regular army less prepared to ward off the current Ukrainian offensive.
The West should thank Mr. Zelenskyy every day for awakening NATO from its Cold War slumber. Ukraine, by its inspiring resistance, has done more than any NATO member to counter and deter Russia.
Ukraine’s stalwart defense of Bakhmut — at a time when many armchair strategists said it should retreat — injected what CIA Director William Burns rightly called the “corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime.”
The longer Russia remains mired in this war, the weaker Mr. Putin becomes. The weaker he becomes, the more committed he grows to a failed war, one for which he had promised his people an easy victory in a matter of days.
The great challenge for Ukraine and NATO now is that Mr. Putin’s vicious strategic circle has no off-ramp and that no clear alternative has emerged to challenge his still-formidable grip on power in the Kremlin.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.
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