Decimated in ground offensives, Russian forces resort to scorched earth in Bakhmut

KYIV -- Russian forces attempting to seize control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut have altered their tactics to a simple doctrine: total destruction.

The war in Ukraine has centred around Bakhmut for months, and Russia has levelled most of the city in its stalled offensive.

Every day Russia conducts approximately 500 shellings of the city, according to Ukrainian officials.

"Because the enemy usually loses to us in street battles, it is choosing the tactic of total destruction of buildings and structures," Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defence Hanna Maliar said on Telegram April 13.

"It is just levelling the city to the ground," she said. "The purpose of this is to deprive our defenders of the opportunity to hold positions in the city."

"The enemy has switched to so-called 'Syrian' tactics of scorched-earth," Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian army's forces in the east, said during a visit to the front on April 10.

Russian forces operating in Syria during its civil war utilised widespread air strikes and siege tactics against civilian targets in urban areas including hospitals and schools.

"[Russia] is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire," he said. "The defence of Bakhmut continues. The situation is difficult but manageable."

Ukrainian forces still hold about a quarter of Bakhmut, according to analysts.

"We hold the last 25% in the west of the city... we managed to gain a foothold there, because it is the last small district with high-rise buildings," said Yevhen Dykyi, a military analyst and former company commander of the volunteer Aidar battalion.

"They've already squeezed us out wherever there were detached houses and wherever there were stand-alone five-storey buildings," he said. "But when they reached the high-rises, they were stopped. It's harder here."

"Basically, there is no city," Dykyi said. "It has been wiped off the face of the earth -- like Grozny in Chechnya in its time, like Aleppo in Syria in its time."

"Essentially, battles are being waged for the ruins where Bakhmut used to be."

New tactics, tremendous destruction

Circumstances in Bakhmut changed dramatically when the Russians started using smart bombs, according to Dykyi.

"Until last month, the Russians had no precision aerial bombs. They have many Soviet 1.5-tonne aerial bombs ... these are gravity bombs. A plane must fly close to the target when dropping them," he said. "In Ukraine, this method did not work for them, because our ground-based air defence was considerable."

As a result, the Russians began to rework the old Soviet aerial bombs so that they could be released without flying too close to Ukrainian positions.

"This has become a serious problem for us because gliding bombs can fly up to 70km," Dykyi said. "In other words, the Russians can release them within territory they control, without entering the area covered by our air defences. Accordingly, they can hit objects located deep in the rear."

"This is a very powerful and dangerous weapon that can inflict severe destruction," said Alexander Kovalenko of Kyiv, a military correspondent for the website InfoResist.

The Russians are reworking their FAB-250, FAB-500 and FAB-1500 bombs, he noted.

Nevertheless, Kovalenko said, the bombs often fall in the wrong place.

"For example, in the Kuibyshevskyi district of Donetsk [province], one of these bombs broke off the bomber pylon and hit a detached house in Russian-controlled territory," he said. "The bomb fell on the building, while the guidance assembly landed 500 metres away -- in general, [they have] no reliability."

However, if even five out of ten bombs reach the target, that means huge destruction for Ukraine, he said.

"Of course, such large-scale application leads to what is happening now in Bakhmut, which they cannot capture," he said. "It's just tremendous destruction."

Russia's catastrophic losses

Despite seven months of incessant attacks, Russian forces have not managed to take the city, which had only 70,000 inhabitants before the war.

At the same time, the Russian army's losses are catastrophic.

The BBC in March, citing Western officials, estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the fighting around Bakhmut.

The Russians are enacting a paramount principle of war: applying constant pressure on the enemy, according to Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ihor Romanenko, who served as deputy chief of the General Staff of Ukraine.

While Russian forces have practically zero modern missiles left, they still have thousands of old air-dropped bombs, he said.

"In any case, the Russians will try to set up full-fledged production of these guided bombs. After all, reworking them is much cheaper than manufacturing new weapons," he said.

However, Romanenko does not expect the newly modified bombs to strategically affect the course of the war.

"The only thing that could make a difference is a large supply of various types of modern weapons," he said. "But the Russians do not have it."