Originally published April 1, 2023
The battle for Bakhmut, which has now been going on for 7 months, has garnered worldwide attention. All news agencies are reporting and speculating on the fierce fighting which has become politically emblematic, both for the Russian occupier troops and the defending forces of Ukraine. This fierce confrontation has increasingly exposed the hypocrisy of all the imperialist powers, which are using the war for global arm wrestling. Great Britain and Germany have made pompous statements about the dispatch of a dozen Leopard or Challenger tanks to Ukraine, while Russia is adding 1500 new T-90s to its armaments. While the pseudo “left-wing pacifists” demand “Not one tank to Ukraine!,” all powers are taking the opportunity to spend billions from their budgets on arming themselves to the teeth, while at the same time poisoning workers’ minds with the idea that “pension cuts and attacks on living conditions in the European Union are due to the war in Ukraine.” The imperialist aim is clear: to divide European workers from Ukrainian workers resisting Putin’s counterrevolutionary invasion.
By LIT-CI
The battle of Bakhmut takes place in the context of Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, as well as the Hague International Court of Justice’s arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. A few days after making solemn joint declarations “For peace in a multipolar world,” Putin announced that he will deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus, in agreement with Lukashenko, starting next July. This calls into question not only the seriousness of these declarations but Xi Jinping as well, who has just visited Russia as the great peacemaker of Eurasia! But we will not dwell on these and other important political facts, rather we will focus instead on analyzing the military situation, its political consequences, and prospects after 13 months of war.
Why Bakhmut?
With a battlefront spanning more than 1,200 kilometers, why has a small industrial city in the Donbas, with a pre-war population of 70,000, no strategic military or economic importance, and already reduced to rubble, been marked as a key target of the war?
Since the end of last summer, when the invading troops faced a series of humiliating debacles on the Kharkiv front in the Northeast and Kherson in the South, the Kremlin command has been waging a war of attrition, a turf war of permanent harassment, indiscriminately bombarding peaceful populations and critical infrastructure. For six months, Iranian “shahid” drones and long-range ballistic missiles have been threatening the entire territory of Ukraine day and night, and continuing to destroy and kill thousands of Ukrainians.
Since the dissolution of the USSR over 30 years ago, the Donbas basin, a rich mining-industrial conglomerate, was disputed over by various Russian and Ukrainian oligarchic groups associated with various foreign corporations and mafias. And it was precisely in the service of these “associations” that the Putin regime defined the Donbas as a target for plunder and colonial conquest. To this end, they have created falsehoods and myths justifying the separatism of the Donbas, including that “Russian-speaking inhabitants are oppressed” by Ukrainian ultranationalists and that “Kyiv has been plundering the riches of the region.“
Long before 2014, Russian chauvinist and neo-Stalinist political operatives arrived in Donetsk and Luhansk — the two regions that make up the Donbas — to poison people’s minds and exploit social tensions. Then, Russian ultra-nationalist paramilitary groups began to act, detonating the 2014 separatist operation with the creation of two self-proclaimed “People’s Republics.”
During these 9 years, the mainly working-class population of the Donbas underwent the grim experience of the Putinist regime. The working masses endured the terrible conditions of the so-called “Russian World” in these “republics,” which had turned into real concentration camps. Any minimal social demand was and is answered with brutal repression or forced disappearance.
These unspeakable ordeals explain why, when Putin’s “Special Military Operation” (SMO) was launched, supposedly invading Ukraine to “liberate the Russians from the Donbas,” many of those who declared themselves as beneficiaries of this “liberation” began supporting the Ukrainian resistance and more than a million fled to other regions of Ukraine, as happened during the Russian invasion of the Donbas port on the Azov Sea with the destruction of practically the entire city of Mariupol. That is why we have been witnessing “evacuations” since the first months of the war, which are actually forced mass deportations to Russia, including thousands of kidnapped children who were handed over to Russian families with no confirmation of whether they had actually been orphaned or even their identity. And many of these forced deportations took place through the “humanitarian corridors” controlled by the invading troops, which prevent these “liberated Russians” from passing into the unoccupied territory of Ukraine and confine them inside Russia. Most of them are confined, not “liberated,” inside Russia, as they remain undocumented. Many seek refuge in the Baltic Republics, trying to pass through Belarus or St. Petersburg.
Donbas: Putin’s falsehoods are exposed, representing a political defeat for his invasion
The Russian aggressors thought they had found in Bakhmut a key point for their “war of attrition” – that is, a target that “the Ukrainians will defend to the hilt and eventually lose.” Many Ukrainian military analysts, including imperialist military specialists, assumed that it was best for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from Bakhmut before they were encircled and trapped. However, the Ukrainian military-political command made the decision to resist.
So far the Russian invaders, led by mercenaries from the “Wagner” PMC Private Military Company, have been bogged down for long months, suffering tens of thousands of casualties as they try to take Bakhmut – in a ratio of 5 to 1, with respect to Ukrainian defending troops – and they have failed to completely encircle the city. The reality, in this case, shows that the greatest attrition and exhaustion have been experienced by the invaders.
And this has revealed itself in an acute political crisis with scandalous public accusations by Evgeny Prigozhin, the “Wagner” owner known as “Putin’s Cook” — against his Minister of Defense Shoigu and the commander of the Russian Army, General Gerasimov. And we are not exaggerating when we say scandalous: this Prigozhin is a mafioso turned oligarch from being a food supplier for the state and armed forces of the Russian Federation. And he declared in widely broadcast videos that Shoigu and Gerasimov are inoperative bureaucrats and clumsy strategists. He even accused them of being “traitors of the motherland” for not sending enough ammunition to Bakhmut in time.
The fracture between the Russian military command and “Wagner” is evident. Everything indicates that the military authorities have decided to “clip Prigozhin’s wings.” He has been forbidden from continuing to recruit convicts. Tens of thousands of them, who constitute the main forces of his private army, have already died. And the survivors, after six months of combat, have the right – by a clause in their contract that pardons their crimes – to leave the army. The consequence being the entry of thousands of these unemployed ex-convicts into Russian society.
As a result of Prigozhin’s blackmail and public denunciations, the high command is sending Bakhmut ammunition and troop reinforcements who are newly recruited and untrained. But it is evident that the regular army leadership has been prioritizing sending soldiers and equipment to operations on other fronts of the Donbas, such as Avdiievka and Vugledar. Shoigu and Gerasimov are trying to achieve some significant breakthroughs on these fronts because the capture of Bakhmut could become a trophy for Wagner’s mercenaries that would belong only to the oligarch Prigozhin.
“Hired” cannon fodder
On the other hand, more and more bitter denunciations and protest videos by Russian foot soldiers at the front are coming to light where they report heavy casualties due to coordination failures and lack of equipment. Meanwhile, among the masses of the Russian Federation – especially those from remote regions and oppressed nationalities – there is growing discontent, discouragement, and uncertainty. This is reflected in the continuous and growing evasion of forced recruitment, which has mobilized 150,000 men each year. For this reason, the regime is betting on a new way of recruiting. On April 1, Putin announced the “recruitment of 400,000” new troops to continue the war. In other words, Russia’s military power, launched into the invasion of Ukraine, which the Russian people passively reject, will depend centrally on the recruitment of soldiers by the state. Putin is trying to copy the model of the “Wagner” Private Military Company with a ”Putin” State Military Company.
Spring counteroffensive conditioned by the supply of arms and ammunition
But this critical situation the enemy aggressor finds itself in cannot necessarily be taken advantage of immediately in all its magnitude by the Ukrainian resistance. The “spring counteroffensive” so desired by the Ukrainian people and its fighters and announced as imminent has been delayed. Why? For many reasons. The first is that despite announcements of financial support and armaments by the imperialist powers, the F-16 planes, which are essential for the support of infantry and tanks in the framework of an offensive, will not be provided. And those that will be provided –according to promises– such as the MIG-29s by other countries of the former Soviet bloc, require more time to adapt to their new armament. Additionally, the offensive weapons and artillery equipment that have arrived on the ground are incredibly scarce, and most of the shipments announced will occur “throughout the entire year” when every week counts. The second factor is the problem presented by weather conditions associated with the “rasputitza,” melting ice and soft mud that hinder the movement of heavy equipment thus making it necessary to maintain defensive positions.
And here, we have debunked another myth spread profusely by numerous “military specialists” in Putin’s service, who from the very beginning of the invasion have repeated that “Russia is fighting NATO.” Now, however, even those same “specialists” and paid commentators, who note the shortage and delay of modern Western weapons for Ukraine and the clear fact that NATO is not involved, have changed their discourse by assuring that “Russia will not lose this war and will achieve many of its goals by the end of this summer.”
We, from the LIT-CI, do not make categorical predictions or speculations. We denounce the hypocritical role of all the imperialist powers. We emphatically point out the severe limitations in the Zelensky government’s wartime rule, as they are, even in the midst of fighting against a partial occupation, more concerned with the immediate disarmament of the people, as stated in the recent decree which establishes harsh penalties for civilians who do not hand over their weapons to the local military authorities by a definitive date. It is precisely in honor of these armed and unarmed people who resist in order to attain their country’s liberation that we commit all our forces to achieve the victory of the Ukrainian working people’s resistance.
For the defeat of the invading troops and the territorial integrity of Ukraine!
For an independent, free, sovereign Ukraine ruled by the workers!
