Why 2023 Putin is Weirdly Betting the Entire War On Bakhmut

In fact The chairman of the Ukrainian Center of Defense Strategies Andriy Zagorodnyuk, claims Putin likely only allowed Russian commander Surovikin to retreat from Kherson on the condition that he intensifies efforts to capture the rest of Donetsk Oblast. The first step for them now is to grab Bakhmut seemingly at the cost of everything else. Putins got tunnel vision for the city of Bakhmut. Could it actually be more valuable than the Ukrainian Armed force is letting on?

One thing is for sure, this bet on Bakhmut has a bad side effect for Putin. He is now dependent on these Wagner mercenaries and their shadowy leader Yevgeny Prigohizin. Prigozhin has become untouchable as long as Putin remains reliant on him for his only chance of a battlefield advance.

Prigozhin is now able to go around town openly saying negative comments to the Russian press about how regular Russian army units are performing terribly, how Russian politicians are cowards and he disapproves of field commanders. His criticisms of Russian general Lapin may have led to him being fired. Prigohzin is allowed to do all of this with impunity afforded to no one else in Russia. He could be a major threat to Putin’s power.

Intelligence estimates place approximately 30,000 Russian forces deployed in the offensive against Bakhmut making it their largest concentration of forces in the country. Let’s analyse, What’s so important to Vladmir Putin in Bakhmut? Why is Russia betting the entire farm on capturing this seemingly unimportant city of Bakhmut at the cost of everything else.

In order to understand why Russia seems to have tunnel vision on Bakhmut we need to analyze its strategic value. Bakhmut is Located in the eastern Ukraine Donetsk region. At this point 20,000 civilians remain of Bakhumuts original population of 80,000 citizens many have already been evacuated. The surrounding farm lands have been flattened and turned into world war I style trenches. Russia recently annexed Donetsk as part of their recent referendum vote. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the referendums a "violation of the UN Charter and international law".

So is Bakhmut really as strategically unimportant as Ukraine claims? In 1701 Russian Tsar Peter the Great first ordered Bakhmut be settled and the salt there to be mined. At the time salt was an extremely valuable commodity and important for food preservation. The strategic importance of the city was once very high.

Today 300 years later The city of Bakhmut is still mainly known for its salt mines that account for 90% of Ukraines salt. However there are conflicting reports of just how much strategic military value Bakhmut actually holds today and I believe there are 4 possible explanations for this.

The 1st theory is that Bakhmut truly holds little strategic value for Russia at all. Evidence of this comes from the fact that there are no major transportation railroad hubs to be found here, no manufacturing industry key to a war effort, and clearly the landlocked city has no major naval ports last time I checked.

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