Months of Russian infantry charges around Bakhmut were wearing down Ukrainian defenders in early 2023, and Kyiv’s leaders were saying something worse was on the way. Oleksiy Danilov, who chairs Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on January 28 that Russian commanders were “preparing for a maximum activization.” They wanted “to show some sort of achievement by the anniversary” of the invasion, he said, and were readying a new wave by February 24.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued similar warnings. The fighting now spreading across the Donbas may be the lead-up to that push, or a slow start to one already under way.
Bakhmut under pressure
Ukrainian soldiers there describe attackers coming in waves and being cut down, many of them prison inmates recruited by the Wagner mercenary group. U.S. officials have said Wagner took on up to 50,000 convicts.
One soldier, identified by the alias Agronomist, said in a post from Ukraine’s Joint Force Task Force that the enemy had changed. His unit first faced ordinary Russian troops, not professionals or special forces. “Recently, Wagner fighters and the GRU have appeared in our sector,” he said. “It’s quite difficult to fight them.”
Konrad Muzyka, a Poland-based defense analyst, wrote on January 31 that the position was deteriorating because Russian forces controlled the main supply roads by fire. All but one of the ground routes into the city were exposed to artillery, rocket or tank fire, he said. Colonel Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Command, said the same day that Bakhmut was still getting food, ammunition and weapons.
Front-line officers sounded less sure. Major Maksym Zhoryn of the 3rd Assault Brigade told Current Time that a temporary pullback from some ground had to be considered. “We’ll fulfill whatever orders are issued,” he said.
The Institute for the Study of War reported on February 1 that Wagner and GRU units were adding elite troops to the “human wave attacks,” which were likely helping revive stalled Russian advances. The think tank judged the tactics “not likely scalable” to larger offensives.
Soledar, Vuhledar and the north
About 18 kilometers north of Bakhmut, Ukrainian commanders ordered what they called a controlled retreat from Soledar earlier in January, after weeks of assaults led by Wagner-recruited inmates. The Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces might use gains north of the town as a launching pad toward Syversk.
Some 150 kilometers south, Ukrainian troops at Vuhledar reported faster Russian attacks led by marine infantry from the Pacific Fleet. Ukrainian commanders said they had reinforced their positions and claimed the marines had taken heavy losses.
Farther north, Ukraine’s attempt to build on its Kharkiv counteroffensive appeared to have stalled at the Svatove-Kreminna line, with Russian troops stepping up attacks.
A race against new tanks
Momentum had swung to Russia for the moment, helped by the tens of thousands of men called up under Vladimir Putin’s September mobilization order, which allowed for up to 300,000. Military and intelligence experts said these conscripts, nicknamed “mobiki,” were arriving in the Donbas in sizable numbers.
Western allies, meanwhile, had agreed to send M1 Abrams, Leopard 2 and Challenger tanks along with Marder, Bradley and AMX-10 armored vehicles. Dara Massicot, a military researcher at the RAND Corporation, said Moscow had reason to move first. “The Kremlin wants something more offensive, more forward, more territory,” she said, and it “benefits them to try to make progress before new capabilities are introduced.”
Putin had also reshuffled his command that month, demoting General Sergei Surovikin after three months and handing the job back to General Valery Gerasimov, who ran the invasion at the outset. Massicot said the change raised the chances that Russia would “rush and do an offensive before they’re ready.”
