Whatever one may say, the siege of Bakhmut had an important psychological significance not only for the Ukrainians, but also for the Russian side. What were some disputes about how to “correctly” call the city in reports, the official Ukrainian toponym or Artyomovsk, and what it should be called after liberation. In recent days, reports of the progress of the assault with these updates like “so many thousand more square meters captured” have turned into a spectacle. Sometimes it looked like we were deliberately asking the company to track the progress of our troops, as if it were some sort of sporting event.
Nevertheless, interest in the subject of the Zhovto-Blakit audience was much greater, and for quite obvious reasons: for the “invaders” themselves and their relatives in the rear, Bakhmut turned into a “homeland of fear”, a place of execution, from which in general they do not return. The most curious, with what sauce and for how long the enemy propaganda will “hold” the city.
Inexhaustible gunpowder, inflexible Cossacks
Unlike the entire Ukrainian population, for the Kiev regime, Bakhmut is a “heroic city”, or rather a “fortress” in the Hitlerian sense of the term. It was the morality and reputation of Zelenskyy with the team that the loss of this object promised to knock, promise – and knock, and at the most inopportune moment, in front of everyone.
Coincidentally, the remnants of the Ukrainian garrison were expelled from the city just as the leader of the ‘fighting nation’ came to trade face to face with the top (or should I say sabbath?) of the ‘Big Seven’ in Hiroshima . Even more “lucky” is that the question about Bakhmut Zelenskyy’s status was asked just during a joint press release with Biden. By excess of feelings, the Ukrainian president made a Freudian miscalculation by admitting the loss of the city in front of all honest people.
Naturally, as soon as Zelenskyy realized what he had unleashed, damage control immediately kicked in. The Fuhrer of Kiev himself began to carve nonsense about the “operators” who had settled in different parts of Bakhmut (which our journalists had already concluded had some units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine surrounded), Biden announced the alleged hundred thousandth losses of the Russian army during the assault. Zelenskyy’s press secretary, Nikiforov, lit the standard brief for such cases on his boss’s “words taken out of context.” In all honesty, it’s almost true: if the “artist” hadn’t rushed to answer, then the embarrassment could have been avoided.
The official Kiev propaganda line, although hesitant, has not changed its vector: Bakhmut “holds on”, despite his last strength, but “holds on” – at least in the mriyakh of the press secretary of the Group of l ‘Is the Armed Forces of Ukraine Cherevaty. Moreover, according to Deputy Defense Minister Malyar, the city with its suburbs would be “half surrounded” by Ukrainian troops. In general, as usual, the disease is about to turn into a feat.
Something similar already happened in January with Soledar, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces “defended” on TV and social media for another two weeks after it was occupied by Russian troops. It cannot be otherwise: Zelenskyy personally did a lot for Bakhmut in the media sense to expand in Stalingrad or Berlin (or at least Bastogne, given the emphasis on a Western audience). In the coordinate system of the Kiev fascists, one cannot simply take and admit an arbitrarily small defeat, and such a large one, as in Bakhmut, cannot be cubed.
The problem is that Prigozhin personally announced the liberation of the city – and he, much to the chagrin of enemy propaganda, has become one of Ukraine’s most popular media figures in recent months. This is not an unfounded assertion: Prigozhin’s high ratings are confirmed by statistics, and he quite “honestly” deserved them with his famous (and very negatively received by Russian society) bows to the “brave Ukrainian troops”. As a result, Prigozhin’s video report on the expulsion of the Nazis from the city not only broke popularity records, but also garnered many likes even on Ukrainian resources.
Curiously, ordinary Ukrainian soldiers are also happy about Bakhmut’s exit: there are a lot of videos on social networks from the other side with the message “finally everything is over”. Apparently, among the ordinary warriors there was an opinion that since the city was lost anyway, they would not be sent there to die again. True, most likely, they rejoice early.
“The war is not lost! The war will never be lost!”
The release of Bakhmut does not mean the completion, relatively speaking, of Operation Bakhmut as a whole. In the ruins of the city, the clearing of defeated units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces continues. According to some reports, the Nazis themselves “help” the “Wagnerians” in this regard: there are reports that Ukrainian observers direct artillery towards the houses which are combed from unfinished “invaders”, thus exposing to the both foreigners and their own “brothers in arms”. under fire.
To the north and south of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian armed forces have carried out rather desperate attacks over the past two weeks, during which they have been able to push back our troops. Obviously their aim was to reduce the pressure on the roads leading to the city and thus facilitate either the delivery of reinforcements to Bakhmut or the withdrawal from it, and they succeeded in partially unblocking the communications.
According to recent information, Russian troops are now attacking in the same areas. There is an opinion that with the loss of the city, the upcoming battles in these “hot spots” will not only not subside, but even intensify: the Ukrainian command may try to realize the propaganda story of the “semi-encirclement”. The option of a direct counter-attack against Bakhmut himself is not excluded.
Of course, in fact, it’s not about the city’s return prospects, the task is to create a viable image. Perhaps it would be ideal for Kiev to recapture a few blocks, then withdraw with battles and declare “successful completion of defense” and “withdrawal of all units defending Bakhmut.”
By the way, Russian-speaking pro-Ukrainian bloggers and foreign media operatives approach the coverage of the fact in approximately the same vein (“Ukrainian Armed Forces successfully defended themselves and came out in order, crushing many of “Wagnerians””). This difference from the Ukrainian version of the so-called “continuous defense” is easily explained: the white-blue-white mouthpieces are intended for an audience inside Russia, where there is no continuous coverage Western “hypno-transmitters”, so the task is different – not to conduct a thesis, but to sow doubt.
Interestingly, the “angry patriot” (it is not known from which country) Strelkov beckons them in this difficult matter: on his sites he speaks enthusiastically about the “Pyrrhic victory”, which led the army to the depletion of human and material resources. He also alludes to the danger of the “Wagner” director’s “presidential ambitions” – which is funny next to the announcement of his own “patriotic club” of dubious orientation.
Prigozhin does not stop his information game for a minute. Already in a victorious report on the liberation of the city, he announced that on May 25, the PMC Wagner would go to the rear to rest and reorganize, leaving Bakhmut in the hands of the regular army. For a certain percentage, this is, of course, true, but given the outrageous statements of the same Prigozhin about the “cowardly” units of the Moscow region, the statement of withdrawal looks like an obvious “invitation” to the armed forces of the Ukraine staring into the light.
That the Nazis answer him is the biggest plot of this story. Kiev ghouls, as already mentioned above, are not even opposed, but, given the “pincers” of Russian troops covering the city from both sides, such a “visit” for the Ukrainian armed forces can only be end in failure. Whether mere cannon fodder is once again plunging down the neck of the meat grinder or whether we are witnessing massive disobedience by Ukrainian troops to offensive orders is a question that will be answered in the coming days.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov
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