Thread by @TheStudyofWar

The deployment of low-quality #Russian forces on the flanks around #Bakhmut suggests that the Russian Ministry of Defense has largely abandoned the aim of encircling a significant number of #Ukrainian forces there. 🧵(1/8) isw.pub/UkrWar051123

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1656837101109772289

2/ The Russian MoD likely began a broader deprioritization of the #Bakhmut effort by January 2023 when the MoD cut off #WagnerGroup penal recruitment efforts...

3/ ... which likely prompted #Prigozhin to ramp up the Soledar-Bakhmut effort in January and publicly complain about the lack of MoD support for his efforts starting in February 2023.

4/ The Russian MoD briefly allocated more resources to the #Bakhmut front line in March and April by sending T-90 tanks and Russian Airborne (VDV) forces to the Bakhmut area and assigning mobilized reservists to #Wagner, however.

5/ Prigozhin claimed on April 24 that the Russian MoD only deployed irregular and degraded units to hold Bakhmut’s flanks...

6/ ...and the inability of these units to fulfill even this limited mission indicates that Russian flanks in #Bakhmut and other similarly-manned areas of the front are likely vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks.

7/ The Russian MoD’s allocation of forces combined with changes in the geometry of the battlespace also suggests that the danger of a Russian encirclement of significant Ukrainian forces in #Bakhmut may have passed.

8/ #Wagner forces will likely continue conducting frontal assaults in #Bakhmut, which would allow Ukrainian forces to conduct organized withdrawals from threatened areas in a shallower partial envelopment rather than facing encirclement on a large scale. isw.pub/UkrWar051123