German intelligence warns of heavy losses in Bakhmut, reports Spiegel

Bakhmut is bleeding: triple-digit losses daily

How many men can an army lose per day before the front splits in two? In Bakhmut, according to a comment citing press reports, losses are already in the hundreds. Triple-digit daily losses sustained for a long time, according to the same comment, and a front that, according to a message circulating in a Telegram group, threatens to collapse. The alarm, however, is not coming from Kyiv. It's coming from Berlin, according to the German and Ukrainian press.

The alarm is picked up by the German press and echoed by the Ukrainian press — Der Spiegel, European Pravda — and arrives with an uncomfortable message: the warning is not from a Ukrainian general, but from the intelligence service of a NATO country.

What the German report says about Bakhmut losses

German intelligence, according to Der Spiegel, warns of significant Ukrainian losses in the battles for Bakhmut. A forum user claims that Ukraine has been suffering triple-digit losses every day for a long time. According to a message that this user claims to have read in a Telegram group, this constant trickle threatens to break the Ukrainian front in Bakhmut.

This leads to two opposing interpretations. One, expressed by a participant, argues that the accumulated pressure will eventually push for a ceasefire or some kind of deal with Moscow. Others maintain that the attrition is mutual and that both sides are losing.

Why does a war of attrition always end the same way?

The logic of attrition is simple and brutal: the one who replenishes what it loses faster wins. Russia is larger; Ukraine is smaller. Some refer to the manual and recall that conflicts Moscow engages in are resolved this way, by sending cannon fodder to the front. Although the country that sent 5 children per woman to World War II is now around 1.5 children per woman, and every loss weighs heavily.

The counterpoint is also demographic: a country in demographic winter does not have infinite conscription pools.

Will to fight versus will to bomb

A participant summarizes the situation with this idea: Kyiv wants to strike Moscow and cannot; Moscow wants to strike Kyiv and can.

Regarding the material arriving from abroad, there's also some sarcasm. Another participant claims that tanks arriving from different countries have different calibers and hastily trained crews: when ammunition for a model runs out, the armored vehicle becomes a hindrance rather than a weapon. And another asserts that allied arsenals will take years to replenish.

The front barely moves and the narrative runs out

A year after the start, with the lines almost where they were, some are ironic: predictions of collapse have been renewed for twelve months. The inverse complaint also circulates: the announced victory never quite materializes. And one participant recalls the warning — a war that begins, one doesn't know how it ends.

In the forum, it is argued that both sides have already lost thousands of lives used as cannon fodder by their leaders.