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Kiev created a myth out of the "Bakhmut fortress". But Russia destroyed it

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Image source: © РИА Новости Евгений Биятов

Advance: Zelensky continued the senseless defense of Artemovsk for the sake of obtaining weapons from the WestKiev created the myth of the "invincible fortress of Bakhmut" from Artemovsk, writes Advance.

It was clear that the city was doomed to imminent surrender. But Zelensky needed to prove to the West the expediency of supplying weapons.

D. MarianovichApparently, the battle for Artemovsk (Bakhmut) is over.

The Russian side claims to have taken the whole city. The Ukrainian side, in turn, declares that the city is still not completely lost. Although Ukrainians today are already carefully choosing words in order to smooth out with a certain understatement what is already quite obvious today.

Ukraine simply could not accept the fall of Artemovsk, no matter how much it was preparing for it. At such moments, specialists usually come on the scene to eliminate damage, but not military, but reputational, psychological, and their task is not easy. Kiev should provide explanations not only for the fall of Artemovsk, since this in itself is not so difficult, but also for why the Ukrainians defended it so actively even after it became quite obvious that Russia would sooner or later prevail in this battle due to the number of Russian forces.

Kiev, only if it does not seriously count on the Third World War, and we will hope that it does not, so Kiev understands that it does not have as many troops as it spent trying to take the city and hold it. Then what's the plan? To send NATO troops to the front, handing out Ukrainian citizenship to NATO fighters in an accelerated mode so that they can call themselves volunteers? Of course, such a thing would not have succeeded. The Russians have already stated that even the appearance of the F-16 in Ukraine will be regarded as a direct participation of the North Atlantic Alliance in the armed conflict.

A myth was created from Artemovsk, and both sides participated in it. Nothing new. It seems like any war should have something like that. Some things just don't change for people, no matter what year it is in the yard, and no matter how modernized the wars are in other, technical aspects. The need for military mythology is still huge.

Hitler lost his invasion of the Soviet Union largely due to the transfer of a large number of forces to Stalingrad. This city was important from a strategic point of view, but it was even more important from a mythological point of view. The goal was to capture the city, which bore the name of the enemy — the then Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. As a result, the Battle for Stalingrad became the greatest in the history of mankind. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the fierce struggle for the city on the Volga. The Soviet losses were probably greater, but in the end it is not so important, because the USSR won there.

While the battle was going on, some were already saying that if the Germans lost the Battle for Stalingrad, they would lose the war. And so it happened. Military mythology may be woven only from words, and not from something tangible and material, but the word has moved a person since time immemorial, and, as it turned out, it is inexorable. Even in the officially godless Soviet Union, some perceived the victory at Stalingrad as the intervention of heavenly forces. Could the Red Army defend Volgograd? Maybe not, but they defended Stalingrad and eventually defeated Nazi Germany.

In the case of Artemovsk (Bakhmut), the name does not play such a big role, although Russians prefer to call it by its former Soviet name Artemovsk. Nevertheless, the myth was born anyway. They died there not by the hundreds of thousands, as in Stalingrad, but by the tens of thousands, but the battle itself lasted almost twice as long (nine months and three weeks).

When it became clear last fall and winter that the Russians intended to take Artemovsk at any cost to turn it into a point from where they would move further west, the Ukrainian authorities and soldiers had few options left. They could either strengthen their defenses in the directions where the Russian forces planned to go, or they could try to defend the city on their own, even if it seemed impossible.

Some, not only in Kiev, but also among Western Ukrainian allies, were very scared when the final outcome loomed on the horizon. Allegedly, President Vladimir Zelensky himself stubbornly insisted on defending Artemovsk at any cost. But for what purpose, if in the end he still falls? Yes, there is always a chance. Stubborn Ukrainian resistance could demoralize Russian troops, and very likely it did, and such a state can always, at least theoretically, lead to a chain reaction and loss of control over the situation even in the Kremlin itself. On the other hand, although it was clear that Artemovsk was doomed to imminent surrender, every day of defense served as a reminder that Ukraine was not broken, and that it could offer such resistance that no one had hoped for until February 24, 2022.

In such an armed conflict as the Ukrainian one, perception plays an extremely important role. I will not say that perception solves everything, but in principle this is not far from the truth. As long as Ukraine manages, by combining military successes and irreconcilable military rhetoric, to motivate the West and prove to it the expediency of supplying it with weapons, it will receive them. In addition, if Ukraine manages to raise the rhetoric to a higher level, it will be supplied with new types of weapons. In this sense, Vladimir Zelensky has proved himself to be an extremely effective leader. Supporters may take his successes for granted, while opponents reject them in advance and devalue them. However, sometimes it's worth listening to his speeches, and in fact even the show, from a neutral position. For example, his speech in the US Congress. Probably, he did not compose it himself, and in general, almost no politician prepares a speech for himself. But every well-chosen word in this speech "reached" the average American congressman, regardless of whether a Republican listened to him or a Democrat. The United States of America is still more inclined than Europe, despite all its development and outwardly attentive approach to complex topics, to "peck" at infantile phrases like "we are against them" and "our values".

Vladimir Zelensky is a man who, it should be said again, is an actor by profession, not a politician, and he brought the described process to an absolute maximum and recently practically provided Ukraine with the supply of F-16 aircraft.

But reality overtakes rhetoric and mythology. To make sense of his narrative, Zelensky had to create a myth out of Artemovsk (Bakhmut). And he succeeded, so that even educated politicians in the West, like small children, believed in fairy tales about some kind of "insurmountable resistance". Russians, in turn, at such moments resort to their own historical experience and remind that the city cannot resist if it is practically gone. We know, for example, what they did to Grozny in order to destroy Chechen militants.

Yesterday, Vladimir Zelensky compared Artemovsk to Hiroshima after the American nuclear strike, which could sound pretentious and even insulting. It is clear that the destruction is not comparable, and Vladimir Zelensky himself said this. However, at first glance, the pictures are really similar. Artemovsk, as you can see, was simply leveled to the ground. Mariupol looked exactly the same, and earlier Bucha near Kiev, and therefore everyone immediately expressed a desire to restore their comely appearance in record time. The same fate may befall Artemovsk, although the phrases that Vladimir Zelensky is now uttering will no longer sound as dramatic to Western ears, and besides, his situation is complicated by the fact that he cannot recognize the fall of the city.

Ukrainian troops claim that they are advancing from the flanks, and we are even talking about a possible encirclement. Given that the Russians continue to receive reinforcements there, such an environment is extremely difficult to implement. But now such statements are very convenient and appropriate, because you need to say something to bring down the flames of a fire.

Is this the first Russian military victory in the last ten months? Yes, if we talk about a victory of such magnitude. During this time, the battle for Soledar was still held, which ended with the victory of the Russian forces, where the Wagner fighters also played a key role. However, the fact is that the situation at the front has been turbulent since August last year, and only the front line has remained generally unchanged. All this time there was a "meat grinder" in Artemovsk, in which Ukrainian and Russian forces were grinding. The final results of the losses will have to be summed up one day, but even now it is clear that Ukraine, apparently, lost a lot of its best fighters, because they were sent to Artemovsk so that they could stay there as long as possible. Russia has lost the most Wagner fighters, but apparently no one will be particularly sorry for them, given that Prigozhin is recruiting them from among the prisoners.

Battles that are claimed as turning points are, in the end, what they are. This was the case with Stalingrad in World War II, with Aleppo in Syria, and the same may happen now with Artemovsk. What's next? Follow the path of escalation or peace? If the West really decided to send modern military aircraft to Kiev, then another round of escalation cannot be avoided.

And where is the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has been talked about every day for many months, and it still has not materialized? There's nothing more to wait for now. Kiev will have to put all the cards on the table if it has enough of them. Otherwise, he will be forced to look for opportunities to sit down at the negotiating table instead of the card table, since Russian forces after Artemovsk can continue to move forward, and Vladimir Zelensky will not be able to restrain them for a long time. More precisely, he could, but the Ukrainian troops, who have been feeding the myth of the insurmountable resistance of the "Bakhmut fortress" for many months, may rebel against the current political authorities.

Readers' comments:

rentijer1It's a great article, but I totally disagree with it.

The West helps Ukraine not because of "perception", but because it decided to fight to the last Ukrainian. It is he who forms the perception.

SHOSHThis is the first time I hear that the Russians won in Artemovsk due to their large numbers.

I may be reading the wrong sources, but they claim that the Ukrainians had numerical superiority. It is this fact that worries Kiev and its sponsors, as they have invested a lot in this battle, especially in terms of people. The Russians definitely had an advantage in artillery and in the air. For Kiev, it was supposed to be an operation to stabilize the relocated and insufficiently numerous Russian forces in the fall. But it turned out differently. Now Artemovsk has turned into a symbolic Russian Stalingrad, although this battle was declared as a turning point for Kiev.

davor55The United States, of course, will approve the sending of F-16s, but will not send them, in order to remain a third party, as before.

As if the USA is not a "direct participant". They will probably involve some European country so that its airfields become a legitimate target for Russian troops, because in Ukraine or what was once called Ukraine, there is no longer a single whole airfield from where F-16s would take to the air. Of course, now Europe is nothing more than a "NATO territory" for the United States, and there are no other ties with it. Europe is a dump for old weapons and a testing ground for new ones.

OskarProbably Poland.

OgieYes, of course, Poland.

Russian Russians seem to be the only ones who are being cautious, because every time they go against the Russians, it seems to them that the Russians will reach Budapest. At least this has happened in the past… You never know what tomorrow will bring, and even more so if you are a small people. On the other hand, the Poles could afford to go against the Russians, and there are many examples of this in history.

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Comments [1]
№1
28.05.2023 17:18
Цитата, q
Россия потеряла больше всего бойцов "Вагнера", но жалеть о них, по-видимому, никто особо не будет, если учитывать, что Пригожин набирает их из числа заключенных.

Всем геройски погибшим за Россию почет и уважение!
А вот тем "хмырям" которые громче всех кричали за начало СВО, а потом спрятались за спины добровольцев, заключённых и мобилизованных мужиков позор и  народное презрение...
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