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Michael Ramirez Cartoon: A Pyrrhic Victory 05-31-23
Today’s cartoon at Michael’s Substack:
Regular Russian troops replace Wagner mercenaries as Russia claims a pyrrhic victory over what is left of Bakhmut.
Did you know that Michael sells art prints of his work? You can view them HERE.
Also, a good friend in Tennessee prints t-shirts with many of Michael’s most popular cartoons.
Published in Foreign Policy
‘They Make a Desert and Call it Peace’
Pyrrhic? No, that’s exactly what the Russians want. Fewer problems after the war if there is no one left to argue with you.
Meanwhile, non-cartoonish Reality:
“Bakhmut Mayor Oleksiy Reva revealed in an interview on May 31 that 204 residents of the once-prosperous industrial city have been killed and 505 others have been injured since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.”
By mid-December, when the Russians breached the eastern borders of the city, about 60k (out of about 70k) residents had already evacuated. During the following months, thousands more followed, such that by the time all of Bakhmut fell to the Russians on May 20, fewer than a 1,000 were still living there.
IOW, in civilian casualty terms, …
Bakhmut is no Hiroshima. Or Nagasaki. Or, … Dresden (25,000 civilians killed in about … 2 days):
Good point.
It is disappointing to see this type of propaganda from Ramirez. The anti-Russian narrative pretends that the Russians are committing the types of atrocities that we committed many times in the past.
It’s as if there’s some cabal spreading lies. It is bipartisan, for the most part. The purpose seems to be justification of the American empire, which we pretend not to have.
The linked article has more:
Right. Minimal civilian casualties, heavy destruction of the mostly unoccupied urban area that the Ukrainians decided to defend.
It is the Ukrainians who are engaging in scorched earth tactics, fighting in urban areas and even in the presence of civilians. They had months and months to evacuate the civilians.
I don’t actually object to this, in principle. I think that it was foolish, but if the Ukrainians would rather see their cities razed to the ground instead of surrendering or withdrawing, that is their prerogative.
I do object to the demonization of the Russians for fighting the Ukrainians in this way. I’m cynical about the laws of war, but if we’re going to apply such rules, the one prohibiting the use of civilians as human shields should apply to the Ukrainians.
I find the propaganda on this issue particularly odious, because I think that the Ukrainians know full well what they are doing — bringing about civilian casualties (albeit minimal) by using those civilians as human shields, and bringing about urban destruction by engaging in urban warfare — and doing so in order to support a dishonest narrative about supposed Russian war crimes.
Yes, war is hell, and urban battles are particularly hellish. Let’s not pretend that those involving Russians in general or … gasp! … Putin in particular are uniquely so, however.
That was my point.
Why? He’s a political cartoonist, so it’s his job to use his art to express his particular ideological views on various topics. And he’s very good at his job. I’d say, the best in the last 20 years or so.
They chose to defend their territory? The dastards!
Bakhmut is not of appreciable strategic or even tactical value except it allows the Russians to demonstrate their core competency: getting their own troops killed.
There is no one in the Russian Army who is fit to command a corporal’s guard.
Much better to send them to safety back behind the lines where they would be subject to Russian “precision” drone and rocket attacks on super-critical strategic targets such as apartment buildings, assisted living facilities, hospitals, elementary schools, and playgrounds.
Barely 5 months ago, Zelensky referred to it 8 times during his address to the Special Joint session of Congress, characterizing its value as being no less pivotal than that of Saratoga during the American Revolutionary War. At the end, he presented VP Harris and Speaker Pelosi with a Ukrainian flag signed by some of the soldiers in Bakhmut he had just visited the previous day.
Now that the Russians have taken it, however, the narrative regarding its value needed to be … “updated”, in “Oceania has NEVER been important!” Orwellian fashion.
The only value Bakhmut had was it was in front. Note that Russia hasn’t advanced from there. That’s because they can’t. It isn’t a chokepoint. It doesn’t provide leverage to threaten another position. It doesn’t give access to a vital resource – unless you’re short of salt. It tied up a lot of troops and equipment in one location, so much so that Russian dissidents raided six miles into Belgorod oblast. Now the Russians have to cover that area with thousands of troops that they need elsewhere.
Flashback to just about exactly a year ago, when the Russians took Mariupol (bolding mine):
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty: ““In practical terms, the end of the siege at Azovstal does not alter the trajectory of the war very much,” Robert Person, an associate professor of international relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told RFE/RL. … it is a Pyrrhic victory that comes at enormous cost. The protracted fight for the city has drained Russia’s military of significant manpower, weapons, and equipment,” Person said.”
Deutsche Welle: “Mariupol a ‘Pyrrhic victory‘ for Russia: military analyst“.
The Times UK: “Russia’s victory over Azovstal, cementing the capture of Mariupol, is pyrrhic.”
Sydney Morning Herald: “… it will be a victory in name only, bought at massive cost to the people and infrastructure of Mariupol. And we might well coin a new phrase to supplement the term ‘Pyrrhic victory’ – Russian Victory.”
And last, but most definitely not least, since their pronouncements have served as a kind of “bat signal” for U.S. media orgs (including Fox News) coverage throughout this war, here is none other than The Institute for the Study of War: “… epitomizes the kind of Pyrrhic victories Russian forces have won in Ukraine, …“.
Same script, requiring only minor alterations such as substituting “Mariupol” with “Bakhmut”. Lather, rinse, repeat. No actual analysis required, just regurgitation. Mr. Ramirez’s cartoon in the OP is but yet another example thereof, albeit presented (as he always does) with superb artistic skill.
World War II was a pyrrhic victory for the USSR. They suffered massive casualties, way more than any other nation. They don’t care. That’s not their standard, neither then nor now.
They suffered those casualties because the only strategist more incompetent than Stalin was Hitler.
They control Bakhmut but not the surrounding area. It is true that they have control of the city. It isn’t at all clear that the battle of Bakhmut is over yet. In this case both sides may have achieved their own operational objectives. The Ukrainians managed to bleed the Russians quite a bit. They have rendered Wagner CIE for at least a couple of months. The Russians got a tangible victory from their winter offensive and may have strengthened western opponents of the war. Only time will tell which side benefits the most from this operation.
And vice versa, of course. There is also the question regarding the type of losses incurred by both sides. Here’s a compelling analysis thereof:
“Taking loss rates of between 25 and 30% (roughly on par with Wagner’s burn rate), it’s clear that Ukraine’s losses were extreme. I believe total irretrievable losses for Ukraine in Bakhmut were approximately 45,000, with some +/- 7,000 margin of error.
So, my current working estimates for losses in the Battle of Bakhmut are some 45,000 for Ukraine, 17,0000 for Wagner, and 5,000 for other Russian forces.
But perhaps even this misses the point.
Ukraine was losing its army, Russia was losing its prison population.
Adjudicating the Battle of Bakhmut is relatively easy when one looks at what units were brought to the table. Bakhmut burned through an enormous portion of the AFU’s inventory, including many of its veteran assault brigades, while virtually none of Russia’s conventional forces were damaged (with the notable exception of the Motor Rifle brigades that defeated the Ukrainian counterattack). Even the Pentagon has admitted that the vast majority of Russian casualties in Ukraine were convicts.
Now, this is all rather cynical – nobody can deny it. But from the unsentimental calculus of strategic logic, Russia churned through its single most disposable military asset, leaving its regular ORBAT not only completely intact, but actually larger than it was last year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine was left with virtually no indigenous offensive power – the only way it can conduct offensive operations is with a mechanized package built from scratch by NATO. For all Ukraine’s bluster, the force commitment at Bakhmut left it unable to undertake any proactive operations all through the winter and spring, its multi-brigade counterattack at Bakhmut lamely fizzled out, and it left its supporters grasping at straws about an imm[i]nent counteroffensive to encircle Wagner by a reserve army that doesn’t exist. It was even reduced to sending small flying columns into Belgorod Oblast to launch terror raids, only to have them blown up – discovering that the Russian border is in fact crawling with forces of the very much intact Russian army.”
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut-postmortem
We’ll see of course but that estimate seems very high. Typically an attacker on an entrenched position is going to take much higher casualties then the defender will, so based on logic these estimates seem quite out of proportion. Could they be right sure, but this smacks more of propaganda then of actual truth. Also Wagner is pulling back, which admittedly you would expect after an operation, while Ukraine is apparently still active in the Bakhmut area, so I am going to doubt that estimate until and unless I see actual evidence of it.
Ukraine’s last major offensive was in last August/ September, this makes a certain sense if they are training and gathering in NATO kit. It could be that excessive losses in Bakhmut mean that Ukrainian doesn’t have the capability of actually carrying out offensive operations any longer, but that sounds more like wishful thinking on the part of the Russians than likely reality. It could just be Ukraine operating to their own time table.
As I have often said. I believe lines on the map changing in the Ukrainian war and little else.
Typically, yes, all else being roughly equal. But all else was not equal in this case. Not even close. To wit (from the same piece):
“Ultimately, it’s difficult to believe that the kill ratio favors Ukraine for the simple reason that the Russians have enjoyed a tremendous advantage in firepower. Ukrainian soldiers speak freely about Russia’s enormous superiority in artillery, and at one point it was suggested that the AFU was outgunned by ten to one. The New Yorker’s interview subjects claimed that their battalion’s mortar section had a ration of a mere five shells per day!
The enormous Russian advantage in artillery and standoff weaponry suggests the a-priori assumption that the AFU would be taking horrific casualties, and indeed that’s what we hear from myriad sources at the front. Then, of course, there was the shocking February claim by a former US Marine in Bakhmut that the life expectancy at the front line was a mere four hours.”
A very reasonable approach.
Russia has expended a lot of artillery and standoff weapons fire in Ukrainian. It isn’t completely clear how effective it has been. Again I find it hard to believe given Russia’s logistics challenges, maintenance challenges, training challenges, and their overall preparedness or lack there of for this conflict that they have been able to use these capabilities to the kind of devastating effect they are claiming here. Again as I say it is possible; however, they have made several other standoff strikes in Ukraine which have done a fair amount of infrastructure damage, but have had limited military effectiveness, at least as far as we can see. Once again though it is difficult to tell.
It is the only one so far that seems somewhat immune to the propaganda on both sides.
I think we can’t really rely on any information of any kind from that war. No one is being honest.
I did say it was somewhat immune from propaganda, but I completely agree. “The first casualty of war is the truth.” as Hiram Johnson noted.
Consider the sources of the above “givens”. I have indeed seen the Russians themselves admit to them to some degree or other, to be sure. But, overwhelmingly, these claims of Russian incapabilities have come from the same sources that, for instance, have been insisting, for a year now, that the Russians are about to run out of artillery shells and missiles any month now.
Again though I go to the map. If these weren’t real. It would be vastly different. On paper Ukraine should not exist at the moment. That it does proves these things. At least up until now. We won’t know if the Russians have turned things around until after it happens. Maybe it already has. We’ll see the truth of things in the coming months. Personally I hope the Russians haven’t turned things around. I believe they are in the wrong on this, so I don’t want to see them profit much from it. I am trying to be honest and scrupulously about what is happening and trying to keep my personal feelings from my analysis, at least as much as I can.
The problem, as I see it, is that no matter your scruples (which I don’t question at all), there is no way we can really know what is happening there. The same lie might benefit both sides at times. What we know is that beyond even the normal fog of war, both countries are corrupt and lie quite openly about everything.
Very true. We may learn more when it is well and truly over and it has had time to be studied by historians, but things being what they are that may not be in my lifetime.