Even if the Russian troops were able to capture the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, where the heaviest battles have been fought on the Russian-Ukrainian front in recent months, this does not mean a turning point in the course of military operations, US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin said on Monday, SIA reports.
The US Defense Minister has said the war-torn eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is symbolically important to Russia, rather than operationally, and its capture would not signal Moscow has regained momentum in its yearlong war effort.
Over the past week, fighting near Bakhmut has intensified, with Russian forces attacking from nearly all sides.
“I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value,” Austin told reporters on Monday while visiting Jordan, adding that he would not predict if or when Bakhmut would be taken by Russian forces.
“The fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight,” Austin added.
If Russia were to capture the city with a pre-war population of about 70,000, Moscow would laud its first major victory in a costly winter offensive, having called up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year.
However, on Monday, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, which is spearheading the longest battle of Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, complained his forces still lack ammunition, blaming possible “betrayal”.
Kremlin-ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose recruits have been fighting for months to capture Bakhmut, has been entangled in a power struggle with the defence ministry and accused them of withholding supplies.
Analysts emphasize that there is a fortification network of Ukrainian troops in the west of Bakhmut, and the possible capture of the city does not mean that Russian troops will open the way to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.
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