New York Times Admits The Ukrainian Military Situation Is Dire, And That Bakhmut Will Soon Fall

Ukrainian servicemen stand near a military vehicle with anti-aircraft cannon at their positions near a front line in Donetsk region, Ukraine, February 1. REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak  

New York Times/DNYUZ: Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault 

NEVSKE, Ukraine — In a tiny village in eastern Ukraine at the epicenter of the next phase of the war, Lyudmila Degtyaryova measures the Russian advance by listening to the boom of incoming artillery shells. 

There are more and more of them now. And they are coming more frequently, as Russian troops grind their way forward.

 “You should see the fireworks here,” said Ms. Degtyaryova, 61, as the sounds of artillery howled all around. “It is like New Year’s.” 

Russia’s military is preparing to launch a new offensive that could soon swallow Ms. Degtyaryova’s village of Nevske, and perhaps much more in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas. But already the impact of Russia’s stepped-up assault is being felt in the towns and villages along the hundreds of miles of undulating eastern front. 

Exhausted Ukrainian troops complain they are already outnumbered and outgunned, even before Russia has committed the bulk of its roughly 200,000 newly mobilized soldiers. And doctors at hospitals speak of mounting losses as they struggle to care for fighters with gruesome injuries.  

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WNU Editor: My father fought in the Second World War. He was an artillery officer and he once told me how the Soviet military conducted military operations against the Germans on the front lines, especially from late 1943 to the end of the war in 1945. It was basically direct all your artillery on a critical spot, blow everything to smithereens, and then send in the infantry to mope up and kill the survivors. And sometimes what they did was they would not take possession of that critical spot, but retreat, let the Germans re-occupy it with fresh troops, and then repeat the same process again killing even more German soldiers in the process. Reading and listening to first hand accounts on what is happening in the current war, it looks like this same type military operation is happening right now in places like Bakhmut. 

The battle for Bakhnut has been ongoing for over 6 months, and it has consumed not only a good percentage of Ukraine's best soldiers, but significant quantities of military equipment. And with nothing left to throw into the meat grinder, it is only now that the Russian army is advancing into the city, with some reports saying that 1/3 of the city is now under Russian control, and all exit routes for what is left of the Ukrainian army being covered by Russian artillery. 

If my father was alive today, I know he would look at me and say that while military technology has advanced, the tactics are always the same. 

So yes. The military situation on the eastern front is dire. A fact that even the New York Times has now belatedly come to realize.