Ok, sorry, been out busy all day.
I'll let him answer, in two chunks. one last night, the other today.
"As I warned several weeks ago it was a big possibility that Ukraine would lose Bakhmut to Russia.
Yesterday that happened with the exception of an industrial complex at the outskirts of the city.
There is a lot of things to debone here, and how it will affect what is coming.
Obviously we also need to discuss how it will affect the Ukrainian encirclement offensive of Bakhmut.
Cost
The 10 month long Offensive in Bakhmut has had a tremendous cost for Russia in human lives and loss of equipment.
Between 40 and 80 thousand Russian soldiers has lost their life in Bakhmut and between 80 and 160 thousand have been wounded.
40 thousand are confirmed Wagner buried soldiers counted in the Wagner burial sites, and does not as such cover Russian regular army losses since they mainly do not recover their dead.
Personally I am fine with an equal number of Russian soldiers having died in the flanking operations that Russia performed during the campaign.
But, let us split the difference and say that 60K in KIA, and two times that number in wounded/disabled.
That would put us in the 180-200K range.
That is 20 percent of the entire Russian Defence Force at peak power prior to the attrition started.
It is roughly 30 percent of the Russian Army at peak power...
The equipment numbers are roughly the same.
Equipment is probably the bigger problem in the short and medium term, while lives is the bigger issue longterm for Russias survival as a state.
What am I talking about?
Russia has about 140 million inhabitants, but due to them not accepting women in combat roles, and the weird demographics Russia only has a pool of 8 million to draw from for the army, and at any time 12.5 percent of that number is already in their defence forces.
In Bakhmut Russia lost 2.5 percent of the entire pool, and in total in this war they have lost 7.5 percent.
At the going rate Russia will have lost their entire pool in about 15 years.
But, as we all know Russia does not give a single **** about dead and wounded.
Troops
Russia will all of a sudden have available a lot of soldiers, question is what they will do with all of them?
Wagner has already stated that they will hand over control of Bakhmut to the the regular Russian army within 5 days and pull back to the deep rear to reconstitute, replenish and recuperate.
We will see if they will be allowed to do that by the Russian MOD, I sort of doubt that they want to give Prigozhin the ability to grow back in strength.
But, if they do this would weaken the Russian flanks around Bakhmut significantly since it is Wagner troops that are doing the fighting there now.
If they go Ukraine will have an easier time encircling Bakhmut.
What Russia could do is obviously to send the troops to various places to reinforce against other Ukrainian future attack vectors like Vuhledar, Zhaporizhzhia and Belgorod.
I somehow doubt this, I think they will try to press on towards Kramatorsk, and this means that we need to reset the entire strategic map from both a Ukrainian and Russian standpoint.
From a Ukrainian standpoint the problem is that Bakhmut and the Russian sexual obsession with taking it was permanently locking down all those troops, and that now it will be harder to do the Ukrainian offensive.
I would say that waiting this long was a strategic mistake by the Ukrainian high command, unless of course Russia develops a new sexual fetish.
Chasiv Yar
From a Ukrainian standpoint I think that they will push the flanks for about another week, and then they will stop and dig down.
Having a toehold in Bakhmut was always beneficial for if Ukraine could surround Bakhmut, but without that toehold things will become harder (somewhat).
But, from the standpoint of Chasiv Yar clearing away Russians will clearly secure the flanks for that Town.
So, what is Chasiv Yar?
It is the main Ukrainian fortress town in the region, it is far better fortified than Bakhmut ever was, it has clear lines in for reinforcements and supplies that are hard to get to for the Russians, and it is very much in the way for Russia if they want to ever get to Kramatorsk.
But foremost it is a wonder of geography from a defensive standpoint since it is located on a hill, unlike Bakhmut that was in a valley.
Chasiv Yar is where the Ukrainian army has been running operations in Bakhmut and resupplied Bakhmut.
Think of it as an even easier position to defend than Vuhledar and you get my point.
Only way to take it is to completely encircle the hill fortress with every single field being uphill, and this is why it is still important to take the areas on the flanks of Bakhmut.
Because from Chasiv Yar every meter is under direct line of fire from the Ukrainian artillery.
I would never try to take this directly and upfront, but Russia being Russia I am fairly certain that this is exactly what they will do.
After all, this is what they tried to do in Vuhledar and Avdi'ivka, and that they did in Bakhmut.
The reason I would not attempt it is to limit loss off lives, but Russia does not care **** about those finer things in life.
Heck, by now I would even say that Russia is a death cult of sorts.
In other news
There has in the last 48 hours been a lot going on in the artillery and missile front of things.
Belgorod was during the night hit hard at military installations, supply depots and train yards and train bridges.
Together with Ukraine milling about in a threatening fashion near the border, and the consistent Ukrainian order to civilians to evacuate, it is starting a small stampede of Russians out of the border districts and Belgorod City.
What I find interesting here is the lack of artillery against Luhansk (beyond the missiles), and if Ukraine stop pushing in Bakhmut, they will have an entire army corps without any job to do and with the bulk of artillery preparations being done against the Russian borders in both Bryansk and Belgorod.
For some reason I can't let go of the idea... from a purely military standpoint it is the best option.
Donetsk City was once again hammered during the night, the same also happened at depth behind the City.
You can pretty much make a partial circle from Donetsk City that is 120km deep down through Mariupol over to Berdyansk, and that circle has Vuhledar as a central point. In the last 72 hours Ukraine has hit anything that moves and in the last 24 hours they started to go for hardened bunkers and underground storages in this area.
I find this somewhat indicative.
Melitopol and Tokmak also got a lot of massaging in the last 24 hours, especially train related supply routes was hit.
And then there was several attacks against air force installations in Crimea, among them the big one just north of Sevastopol.
Here Ukraine used combinations of missiles and drones.
Black Army
A part that I rarely write about is what I would call the Black Army in Ukraine.
Officially every single fighting person in Ukraine is nowadays a part of the Ukrainian army and have signed contracts.
This is only partially true.
First let us clear out the various shades of the 100 000 soldiers strong Grey Army (50 Shades of Grey).
These are the volunteers, mysteriously vacationing professional soldiers, supply specialists, etcetera and so on... They are all part of the Ukrainian army now, so they are just lighter shades of grey.
Then you have the Military Advisors from states like the UK, US, Canada, Sweden and Finland. They are all de-patched (carrying no flag), and there are entire units involved in occasional fights if they happen to be under attack. Definitely a darker shade of grey here.
Next step down the line are defence industry company "specialists" testing new weapons on the battlefield. This is definitely dark grey, especially that guy from Steyr that went in to Bakhmut and used an experimental sniping rifle and improved 100 Russians in a single day. I have seen the scope video, 100 shots / 100 hits.
A while back someone chucked the gloves, hat and entire suit into the fire and sad sod it and opened the wallet bigtime.
That someone argued that if Russia can employ Wagner and other PMCs, then we can do exactly the same.
Now that videos of Blackhawk's and other western choppers are emerging flying into hot zones dumping specialists into battle I can talk about it, I was obviously aware of it before.
What that someone did was call Academi (formerly known as Blackwater) and the 9 next on the list size wise.
The order was to clear all Russian PMCs from the face of Earth.
Rationale being that it is totally fine to use a PMCs against PMCs.
The bill for this is pretty much open ended and is not government funded.
Ukraine is not entirely happy with the greys, and definitely not happy with the blacks.
Those volunteers and vacationers they have sorted into the army structure, the rest not so much, and with the blacks only vaguely working in the same direction as the Ukrainian regular army.
But, at the same time there is not much Ukraine can do about it since they desperately need all the help they can get.
My personal thought is that Academi and the others are incredibly dark and vicious outfits able to do all sorts of horrendous things left unattended, but I know that they usually get the job done, albeit in a gruesome way.
War does not smell of roses."
And then today after some probing from people in our group.
" Ukraine has today confirmed that Bakhmut has fallen, with the exception of the industrial estate.
They also stated that they have all of Bakhmut under fire control and in partial encirclement, and that they would continue offensive operations around Bakhmut.
Both comments was about Prigozhin's eternal bull****.
Problem is just that Prigozhin is somewhat more honest than the Russian MOD.
There is almost always a nugget of truth in what he is stating, albeit twisted into his worldview and needs.
On a sliding scale from Lavrov to Strelkov, where everything flying out of Horsafece is a bold lie and not having said a lie to date (Strelkov has obviously been wrong a couple of times, but never lied), Prigozhin falls in between.
When truth is helping him he is honest enough, and even when lying he is sort of basing it on reality.
Now, there are two parts to what ***** and ***** wrote that is similar, so I will answer you both in one go.
Contract
Wagner PMC are mercenaries, and they are there on a contract.
They have during the war held several contracts with the Russian Government (and not the MOD as such).
The latest contract was for taking Bakhmut, and the previous was Soledar.
The contracts stipulate that they will take the City against payment and free ammunition and equipment supplies and a very hefty cash bonus upon achieving the goal.
The contract seems to clearly stipulate that upon having finished the job they
shall hand over the city to the Russian army, and that they are then free to take other contracts or do whatever they jolly wish.
The spat between the MOD is obviously a political manoeuvre on Prigozhin's part, but it is also a beef about Russian MOD not fully fulfilling their part of the deal in regards of that free ammo.
This is also why the MOD could say that they would haul Wagner away upon treason charges if they left, in civil speak going away to early would have been a breach of contract.
Anyway, contractually they are well within their right to move out.
Washington Post
About one week ago there was an article in the Washington Post where a numbnut leaked about a deal between Ukraine (Budanov) and Wagner.
In the article it was stated that Prigozhin would hand over target information to Ukraine on Russian defence installations and the whereabouts of Russian military leaders in Donbas, this would then be paid via Ukraine giving up Bakhmut to Wagner, who would then move out, and Ukraine would smash the Russian regular army through an encircling operation. (source below)
Mysteriously Ukraine hit no less than 4 colonels and 1 two star general around this time, started the encircling operation, and rather nicely moved out.
As I saw the article I was rather miffed since we had good intel about the deal being real.
By now Prigozhin is the bees knees hero in Russia, and he can contractually move out for greener pastures, having concluded no less than two contracts in one go.
Prigozhin offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says - The Washington Post
Afterthought
Yes, clearing the flanks is giving manoeuvre space for the Ukrainians to defend Chasiv Yar, but I also think that Ukraine will try to push home the encirclement of Bakhmut due to the political space victory it would entail.
Wagner will keep it's victory, but for Russia itself it would be a TKO of insane proportions to have their sexual trophy taken from them directly after getting it.
I think that Chasiv Yar is the backup position still, and not the goal of the current Ukrainian offensive in the East.
And I also firmly believe that Ukraine have to at least threaten to take it to keep all of those Russian forces locked down there, if they do not do that their other offensive vectors might be in peril.
Ukraine did make a mistake in not starting their other offensive's prior to losing (giving up) Bakhmut, and that might cost them dearly if they do not use the opportunity to pin down those troops."