TL;DR:
The Highs:
The Russian MOD obstructs Wagner in Bakhmut, diverting resources to fuel an embarrassing failed offensive in Vuhledar.
These efforts to undercut Wagner in Bakhmut prompt the “March of Justice” mutiny, nearly causing a full-blown civil war in Russia, massively humiliating Putin.
The fiasco culminates with the assassination of Prigozhin and Wagner leadership. It also destroys the most successful (if detestable) offensive force available to Russia.
Russia’s ammunition expenditure proves so great that Putin turns to North Korea to replenish ammunition stockpiles.
For Bakhmut’s strategic value (zilch), Russia racks up massive losses in veteran soldiers, equipment, and armored vehicles.
The Lows:
Ukraine expends much of its ammunition reserves. The lack of ammunition is partially offset by the US agreeing to send cluster munitions (DPICM) to Ukraine, but the shortages still prove a major hindrance to Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive.
Ukraine delays its counteroffensive until June, shortening the time available before the autumn rains end the fighting season.
Part 1: Bakhmut and Vuhledar
At the beginning of the year, Russian forces led by Wagner mercenaries were conducting daily meat assaults using drug-addled convicts around the city of Bakhmut in an attempt to surround the city and its defenders.
Russian convicts were offered presidential pardons in exchange for service in Ukraine, creating a ready pool of motivated, violent men. Supervising them were even more violent and heinous criminals — Wagner mercenaries. With recon drones, Wagner operatives could control every movement of teams of convicts on the battlefield — like “meat drones.” Any convict caught retreating or refusing to follow orders would be “reset,” the popular frontline euphemism for summarily executed. Wagner’s leaders believed that war crimes bound the convicts and mercenaries more tightly to the organization. They ordered that any Ukrainians found inside the city be “reset”, including prisoners, the elderly, and children.
Every day, around the clock, convict assault teams led by a single Wagner mercenary would attack Ukrainian positions north and south of Bakhmut — the disposable, stimmed-up skirmishers drawing and wasting defenders’ ammunition until killed. Wagner leadership would allow this low-level fighting to continue for hours until ordering dozens of sacrificial automatons to attack in unison, with the leading Wagner mercenary ready to shoot any refusers. Along a frontline of about 20 miles, scores of attacks like these were conducted each day for months without end. This coordinated sequence of near constant violence we now call the Battle of Bakhmut.
In support of these efforts, Russian forces were firing nearly 60,000 artillery rounds each day — leveling structures inside the city and surrounding villages. According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) began diverting resources away from Bakhmut in December 2022/January 2023. Shellfire dropped to 20,000-30,000 per day. The reason?
The Battle of Vuhledar.
Putin likes to pit his cronies against one another to prevent any single faction from gathering too much power. In this case, Shoigu and Gerasimov (two of the most important figures representing the Russian MOD faction) wanted to ensure that Wagner and Prigozhin’s offensive did not outshine their own efforts. So to hamstring Prigozhin, and to stockpile ammo for their own offensive, Shoigu and Gerasimov cut the flow of ammo to Prigozhin and began a major assault near Vuhledar, a little over 60 miles to the southwest.
Beginning on February 4, the battle started disastrously for the Russians and never really got better. By the end of the month, the ~4,000 persons named 40th and 155th Naval Infantry Brigades were mostly frozen corpses, while something like 150 armored vehicles, including dozens of tanks, were destroyed trying to bum-rush through Ukrainian minefields.
This Ukrainian win seemed like good news amidst the unrelenting meat assaults around Bakhmut that were pushing steely Ukrainian defenders further and further back, at the cost of tens of thousands of convict and mercenary lives.
What most observers did not know at the time was that the Battle of Bakhmut nearly ended in disaster in February — while the attacks near Vuhledar were in full swing. Prigozhin, recognizing the Russian MOD was allowing Bakhmut to slip away in favor of the abortive attacks at Vuhledar, committed his reserves of career mercenaries to the battle, supplementing his undertrained and underequipped convicts in a final bid to encircle the Ukrainians.
It almost worked.
The influx of professional Wagner veterans — infamous for their cruelty in Syria, the Central African Republic, and in Ukraine — overwhelmed critical positions defending in the north, causing a handful of green Ukrainian units to rout. The defenders froze — paralyzed knowing that their only escape, the T0504 highway to the west, was seriously threatened. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s spymaster, described the situation as “catastrophic” — offering the equivalent of the CIA’s special forces as emergency reserve units for counterattacks to halt Wagner before the T0504 lifeline could be cut. The Yooks barely managed to stabilize the situation in time.
For a few weeks, convicts and Wagner mercenaries continued to chase their dream of encirclement, but the opportunity for a great victory had passed. Shoigu and Gerasimov cut the flow of new convicts to Wagner, mercenary veterans started dying in greater numbers, and the best Prigozhin could settle for was to gradually force the Ukrainians to abandon the city.
Bakhmut ultimately ended as a Russian Pyrrhic victory after Ukrainian forces retreated from the city in May. But it left Wagner mercenaries with a deep sense of betrayal. Had the Russian MOD not cut ammunition and supplies to Wagner leadership — thousands of veteran mercenaries would not have died. Possibly tens of thousands. Instead, Wagner and Russia would be celebrating a massive victory. Wagner and Prigozhin regarded undercutting the Battle of Bakhmut as a criminal betrayal of Russia’s national interests, worthy of a mutiny to replace the responsible culprits: Shoigu and Gerasimov.
Thus began the “March of Justice”.
It remains unclear if this was truly an attempted coup to replace Putin’s leadership. More accurately, it seems that Prigozhin and Wagner were at least partly honest in declaring that the mutiny was primarily to replace Shoigu, Gerasimov, and their bumbling management of the war. Over a dozen Russian pilots were killed by nominally Russian forces — making it maybe “the shortest civil war in the history of Russia.” It cost Prigozhin and Wagner leadership their lives and Russia their most effective soldiers. For one brief, glorious day, Ukraine dared to hope that the war might end.