I had expected Bakhmut to fall because the Russians had been (reportedly) gaining some ground by throwing their troops into the meat grinder. Here's one example of a recent report suggesting that it would make sense for Ukraine to pull out of Bakhmut.
However, according to the UK Ministry of Defense, Ukraine has apparently been able to halt the Russians.
This is consistent with NYT reporting:
>>>KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s top generals want to bolster the defenses of the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, the government said Monday, signaling that rather than retreat from the city, they will pursue a strategy of bleeding the Russian army in a battle of attrition before a planned Ukrainian counterattack. . . . In seesaw fighting on the city’s artillery-blasted streets and nearby villages and farm fields, the losses on both sides have been staggering, in the longest sustained Russian assault since the invasion last year. Gradual Russian advances have led some Ukrainian officials in recent weeks to hint at
the possibility of a retreat to avoid encirclement, but Ukrainian assault brigades
went on the attack over the weekend and appeared to push back Russian forces. . . . No independent count of the dead and wounded has been possible, and each side is seen as inflating the other’s losses while concealing its own. Over the weekend, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, Oleksiy Danilev, asserted that Russia’s loses in attacking entrenched positions were seven times Ukraine’s. . . . But Ukraine, with a population one-third of Russia’s, is less able to absorb the losses, and is trading the lives of experienced soldiers for those of Russian ex-convicts whose Wagner commanders often treat as expendable.<<<
Gradual Russian advances and high Ukrainian casualties have fueled talk of a retreat from the eastern city, but Ukrainians say Russian losses are worse, a reason to keep them fighting.
www.nytimes.com
I do not envy anyone on the ground in that area.
