Comments by "Sean Cidy" (@seancidy6008) on "Was Bakhmut worth it? — Reaction to Michael Kofman" video.

So the fighting to take Bakhmut has stopped now that Wagner is no longer a worry?
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Bakhmut was an extremely long battle with different stages in which the focus and methods altered, at least on the Russian side, so it is not amenable to a single encompassing narrative. We are not talking about Hostomel airport
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@julianbrelsford What the Russian are mainly doing all along the line now is a scaled up version of what Ukraine was doing in Bakhmut, according to Anders, eh?
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Ukraine was hardly formulating its strategy with the idea of causing Wagner to mutiny, otherwise they would have been ready, waiting and able to take instant advantage of it.
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Russia did win a victory in Bakhmut they took it, and Prigozhini complained ceaselessly that Wagner were starved of artillery taking Bakhmut. So the type of fighting in Bakhmut suited Wagner in a way that it would not have done elsewhere. Surovikin designed the Bakhmut operation, maybe he thought it was a good use of a traditional Russian use of convicts that had been made available for some time (ie they were not an innovation or recruited for Bakhmut specifically). Philips O'Brian is more of a naval and airpower expert, and I don't think the Russian artillery advantage being big enough to win in in a set piece like Bakhmut and fight elsewhere is obvious to him. I think it is quite telling that Wagner Group is gone yet Ukraine is still trying very hard to take Bakhmut . The city would seem to have a special military value to both sides beyond tying up enemy forces or attritiing them. Wagner were unlike the Russian army in fighting as light infantry rather than as part of an artillery centric force using bombardment for everything.
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@BjornSeverinLarsen Ukraine could hardly have predicted that
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Why not an economy of force operation rather than a such a rigid defence complete with counter attacks. Russian convict casualties were a feature not a bug.
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Wagner is a light infantry formation with an expendable component of irregulars, they are specially designed for advancing through heavily fortified and mined urban areas. Russia is currently standing on the defence, which requires regular units with heavt weapons and engineers. Moreover, Wagner in Belarus is necessitating a diversion of Ukraine's troops from the east and south.
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@Truth4thetrue Prigozhin's military empre was growing too big and the army was going to take it over. That, and Prigozhin ,being coked out of his skull, was why he revolted
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Russia took Bakhmut, that was not a psychological blow to Ukrainian morale and a huge boost to Russian confidence?
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I don't think the value to each side was equal; the Russians thought they could not leave Ukraine in possession of Bakhmut as it would expose a weak part ofthe Russian held territory to attack, but Ukraine could have used a economy of force fighting retreat in the second stage of the battle because Russia could not continue advancing after taking Bakhmut.
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You have to bring some to get some. In other words Ukraine was tying down its own units too and those troops needed resting and refitting after the battle ended. Also confidence building training because hiding un bunkers from mass effect artillery was not much of a preparation for swift mobile advances.
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I think some of the Ukrainian generals thought the battle initially made sense but the returns on the investment of manpower rapidly diminished as Russian tactics evolved towards the use of ex con expendables to bear the brunt of Ukrainian firepower and mines.
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@lancehilt7536 The announcing of Bakhmut to be such a symbol was a dangerous thing for morale especially if it was in fact lost after an appreciable loss of good troops KIA defending it. Surviving defenders would hardly be sharp in the skill set for combined arms attack of be psychologically ready for participating in a mobile offensive. Russian troops on the other hand must have gained in from their first victory in over a year, be it ever so hard fought.
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I'm sorry, Bakhmut was a Russian victory. Pyrrhic perhaps, but a victory boosting Russian confidence and morale nevertheless.
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It had no value as a springboard for a Russian offensive, which is proven by them not advancing beyond it, but I think Ukraine could have found it handy for mounting an attack from.
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In the current battle for Bakhmut Ukraine is avoiding urbanised combat in the city but on the offensive around the it while using HIMARS strikes to attrit the Russian artillery. This is a cleverer operation than going toe to toe with an ever burgeoning Wagner was, and while it is true that Wagner surely lost good troops at a high rate in the begining of their offensive the Bakhmut battle, their methods altered and they brought in the Z penal volunteers to front the advance and take many of the casualties, which although little reported are in a great many cases caused by mines. I think Ukraine ought to have adapted to the change in the Russian tactics with one of their own. Instead, Ukraine kept on with with the same dogged defence throughout.
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Russia did not continue the attack after taking Bakhmut, yet Ukraine is trying to recapture it. I think that Ukraine in Bakhnut threatened the Russian line which is why it is being so doggedly held against the current Ukrainian effort trying to break the Russian line in Bakhmut; both sides obviously think deeper behind Bakhmut is an an inviting weak spot for a Ukrainian exploitation and somewhere Russia will have trouble getting their reserves to.
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@philipmulville8218 As an active duty officer in the Danish armed forces (Denmark was red hot for Ukraine joining NATO), he cannot be rude about the Ukrainians, but Kofman is an easy target
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Kofman is a land power guy. O'Brien is more enamored of sea power as determinative in the grand scheme of things. Anders is a naval officer of course.
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@ChucksSEADnDEAD Thanks, that explains why the Russian used the Z convict storm units when forced to fight where they originally didn't want to, but it doesn't explain why the Ukrainians did not stage an economy of force fighting retreat when it became clear the Russians were driving an inexhaustible screen of expendable goons in front of the actual professionals of Wagner that were supported by fires. Currently the Ukrainians are advancing on Bakhmut, which indicates it does have value to them as a point from which to mount a deep penetration and exploitation. Furthermore the Ukrainians are methodically arttriting Russian artilleries by extensive use of HIMARS then slowly advancing in the latest offensive, which is a lot cleverer than trying to defend against Russian cannon fodder convict screening the adept professions of Wagner while they are being given massive fire support, which is what the battle of Bukhmut was in the latter part of it,. Kofman was critiquing a failure of Ukrainian flexibility and subordinating everything else to the main effort. I don't see there was a pinning of Wagner as they won and Ukraine could hardly have predicted the rebellion, could they? Wagnerites would have been available if not for Prig's mutiny. In fixing them the Ukrainians were fixing their own troops and the loss of morale after Zelensky announcing it would be defended was sapped the troops fighting spirits somewhat surely.
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Russian took Bakhmut and did not follow up so no, it was not somewhere Russia wanted as the basis for an advance. I think the Russians thought the Ukrainians could not be left in posession of Bakhmut because it was somewhere Ukraine would find ideal to launch an attack into the Russian rear area, which were favourable for exploitations..
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You have to look and the evolution of tactics and how the battle changed. It seems clear to me that the Russians were being bled at first but they adapted. And they did get their first victory in over a year even though Ukraine was willing to take significant losses defending it throughout.
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@barbaros99 No plan survives contact with the enemy. Well it ought not to anyway.
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@barbaros99 As it is apparently a point so tangential that you object to my response pertinent to Anders's one perhaps you ought to consider whether to start your own channel and not allow comments on it. The only point Anders made about timeline in the context of his discussion about whether Ukraine fell into a Russian trap was he noted that the Russian convicts were finishing their contracts by the time Wagner entered the Bakhmut battle. I simply picked up on your mention of timeline in a comment and assumed it was in the aforementioned context, and as this is Anders's YT where he decides to allow comments and has allowed mine so far even though I often disagree with him, I replied to comments on his YT reaction to Kofman without worrying about whether I exactly grasped what the commenter meant. Pardon me for not realising we were not on the same page and you had some abstruse musing you wanted to do here.
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@barbaros99 My comments are pertinent to the argument of the YT video they appear below. Anders said Kofman was wrong, but I said its not that simple; Russia was was forced into urbanised offensive and bled in Bakhmut initially but it tried to turn the tables and thrugh accepting the high kill ratio while altering it to be of disposable auxiliaries recruited from prisons for trained soldiers valuable to Ukraine. One has to look at how the Russians responded during Bakhmut to create and use the assemblage of expendable convicts and professional soldiers that Wagner had became by the time of the heaviest fighting for Bakhmut. Only then is it possible to judge whether in hindsight Ukraine ought to have persisted with the same operational concept it started with, or disengaged due to an evolution in Russian tactics over time altering the terms of the battle to Ukraine's disadvantage
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So Western combined arms boils down to complete command of the air, (thats what air superiority is) . Far from clear how air support would have been have been useful against Wagner's highly urbanised light infantry attack, which used expendable convicts to clear mines and draw fire, and could have been used to soak up airstrikes by extremely valuable planes braving the Russians AA missile festooned ground forces
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@macki-1 Wagner as it fought in Bakhmut (apart from the early advance attempting to encircle it), was was using a very specialised l method of advancing spearheaded by convict groups sequentially sent along the same routes and suffering extremely high casualties. As the US said Wagner's tactics in Bakhmut were not ones that the Russian would chose to use if there were other options. Bakhmut had to be denied to Ukraine at whatever cost in the Russian command's opinion
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