The textbooks, when they are written, will surely focus on why the town was ever fought over in the first place. Bakhmut has limited strategic significance. There are better natural defences in the hills to the west of the town. The city itself has been reduced to a pile of smouldering rubble. According to recently leaked Pentagon documents, America has since January been privately urging Ukraine’s leadership to retreat. But Bakhmut has acquired a political weight that appears to trump military necessity. Since the fighting began last July, it has become a symbol of Ukrainian defiance. The Russians desperately want to capture the town, small and ruined though it is, as a fillip for their flagging campaign: it has been the main focus of their fighting since late summer. For Ukraine, it matters for much the same reason—to deny Russia a morale-boosting victory and to wear the enemy down in the process.
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