Wagner PEC plan to exhaust the Armed Forces in Bakhmut, and the pressure is increasing on Zelensky - WSJ

"Due to their policies, the executions of the military who are trying to retreat or surrender and ignoring the losses that are shocking in the modern war, the one -time battalions of Wagner have become a unique threat to Ukrainian defenders. No military commander in a democratic society can send a wave in the democratic society soldiers for almost faithful death to get a few meters of land.

Even regular Armed Forces, known for their high tolerance to losses, evade troops on clearly suicide missions. However, this approach allowed Wagner to approach Bakhmut with the price that Ukrainian and Western official Persons are estimated at tens of thousands of Russian losses, "the publication reads.

It is noted that the Wagnerians in Bakhmut managed to move to the city center from the east and north, as the units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine retreated west of the Bakhmutka River, which flows through the city. The Armed Forces fought for control of two routes to the remaining Bakhmut, with heavy artillery shootouts on the front line.

Ukraine, according to Western journalists, has also suffered great losses for 8 months of Bakhmut fighting, losing some of the troops necessary for the spring offensive with a new weapon provided by the United States and Allies. President Vladimir Zelensky increases pressure so that he orders the Armed Forces to leave the city, which will become the first such significant retreat of Kiev since last summer.

Ukrainian defenders say that Wagner PVC fighters can attack 18 waves 24 hours a day for a day. "Wagner PVC fighter is not able to retreat. Their only chance to survive - to continue moving forward. And this tactic works. It is a war zombie. They throw us cannon meat to cause maximum harm.

Obviously we cannot answer Similarly, because we do not have so many personnel, and we are sensitive to losses, " - said Senior Lieutenant Petro Gorbatenko, commander of the battalion of the third assault brigade, one of the Ukrainian units of the Armed Forces on the Bakhmut Front. According to the head of the Wagner PEC Yevgeny Prigogine, the purpose of the group was not so much to take Bakhmut as to defeat the Ukrainian army.

To some extent, this plan has worked: since in recent months, Ukraine has sent several of its best brigades to protect the city, even a unilateral ratio of losses in favor of Ukraine eventually worked in favor of Moscow, given the larger population of Russia. Such losses in the Bakhmut area, reports the newspaper, threaten the ability of Kiev to perform a strategic counter -offensive after the present mud season will end in the spring and the soil roads will become travel again.

"The war wins not the party that conquers the territory, but the side that destroys the enemy's armed forces," said Senior Lieutenant Gorbatenko, commander of the battalion of the third assault brigade. "Here we use too much offensive potential that we will need to break when the Ukrainian black soil dries. " The Armed Forces can carry out limited indentation in the eastern Bakhmut and continue to cause losses of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, it seems inevitable that in the future the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will be forced to stop, and this will create favorable conditions for the counter -offensive of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, according to analysts of the Institute of War Research on March 5. On March 5, the founder of Wagner PEC "Wagner" said that "after Bakhmut," Wagnerivka "will be restarted, and their number will decrease.