[21] By using repeated assaults composed of former convicts, Wagner troops were able to gradually gain ground[22][23] and by February 2023, they captured territory in the north and south of Bakhmut and threatened encirclement.

[63] Prior to the battle in Bakhmut, Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi claimed that Russia held a five-to-one manpower advantage over Ukraine along the eastern front.

[64] On 1 August 2022, Russian forces launched assaults on settlements southeast and northeast of Bakhmut, including Yakovlivka, Soledar, and Vershyna, which the Ukrainian General Staff said it had repelled.

[71][72] A Russian missile strike on 22 September destroyed the main bridge across the Bakhmutka river that bisects the city, disrupting both civilian travel and Ukrainian military logistics.

[73] American military correspondent David Axe reported that by 26 September, Russia's 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division, which had a prewar strength of over 12,000 troops, had been largely destroyed and rendered combat ineffective as a result of heavy casualties sustained in the fighting around Bakhmut, and in the concurrent 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive.

[77] Fighting within Bakhmut's urban boundaries began some time before 24 October since, by this day, Ukraine did a minor counteroffensive that pushed Russian forces from some factories on the eastern outskirts of the city, along Patrice Lumumba street.

[78][79] By early November, much of the fighting around Bakhmut had descended into trench warfare conditions, with neither side making any significant breakthroughs and hundreds of casualties reported daily amid fierce shelling and artillery duels.

Butusov noted that Russian forces had suffered "huge losses every day" assaulting Bakhmut and its outskirts since early May, but insisted that they were adapting their tactics against increasingly exhausted Ukrainian defenders.

[85] On 3 December, Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Eastern Command, described the Bakhmut front as "the most bloody, cruel and brutal sector ... in the Russian-Ukrainian war so far", adding that the Russians had conducted 261 artillery attacks in the past day alone.

[88] The commander of the Ukraine National Guard's Svoboda Battalion, defending Bakhmut's southern flank, said they were "fighting for every bush" and predicted Russia would struggle to overcome a canal above and behind Kurdiumivka.

[90] Soldiers of Ukraine's 24th Mechanized Brigade recounted recent battlefield engagements to media, such as one multi-day firefight with 50 Russian troops dug into a treeline where in some places "we were only 100 metres apart".

One Ukrainian artillerymen alleged that "80 percent" of the remaining civilian population, surviving in basements and supplied by mobile grocery trucks that periodically enter the city, was pro-Russian.

[98][99] A Ukrainian commander reported that an abundance of drone surveillance allowed for quick responses to small Russian assaults on the outskirts, while also alleging that Russia did not control Bakhmut's eastern industrial zone.

Reportedly, Wagner fighters were assaulting strongholds in Bakhmutske, Pidhorodne, and Klishciivka, located along Bakhmut's northeastern and southwestern flanks respectively, while the Ukrainians continued to hold northern Opytne, blunting Russia's advance from the south.

[104] The ISW judged that Russia's advance on Bakhmut had "culminated" by 28 December, assessing that Russian and Wagner forces had grown increasingly unable to sustain the previous scale of infantry assaults and artillery barrages.

[105] By early January 2023, the pace of fighting and rate of artillery fire in the Bakhmut sector had significantly decreased, and The Kyiv Independent remarked that the battle was "near culmination".

[109] Days later on 5 February, the British Ministry of Defence stated that Russian troops were able to fire upon the M03 and H32 roads north of the city, the main Ukrainian supply route for northern Bakhmut.

"[127] On 17 April, the People's House [de] of the city was destroyed[128] by retreating Ukrainian soldiers belonging to the 77th Airmobile Brigade to prevent the building from being used as a refuge by Russian forces.

[129] On 18 April, Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Russia was "increasing the activity of heavy artillery and the number of air strikes, turning the city into ruins".

[141] Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukrainian Commander of Ground Forces, said that Prigozhin's claims of ammunition shortages were false, saying that the Russians were "pummeling" their positions.

The British Ministry of Defence and the ISW both assessed that the unit supplanting Wagner was the 132nd Separate Guard Motorized Rifle Brigade of the DNR's 1st Army Corps, reflecting Russia's attempts to have the city be incorporated into the DPR.

Ukrainian Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty reported one instance of fighting near Bakhmut and published geolocated footage that indicated that Russian forces had made marginal gains west of Klishchiivka.

However, Russian assault forces were primarily spearheaded by Wagner Group private military contractors, ex-convicts, reinforcements from other front lines in Ukraine, and recently mobilized recruits.

[181] Wagner's forces reportedly consisted of a majority of recruited, under-trained ex-convicts and a minority of well-trained contractors serving as group commanders that operated efficiently and encrypted radio communications.

[178] At the end of June, the Ukrainian military assessed the strength of Russian forces to be 50,300 soldiers, 330 tanks and 140 artillery systems, and reported that no Wagner personnel remained.

[198][better source needed] The overall strategic value of Bakhmut was considered dubious by many analysts, observing that the resources and lives Russia spent assaulting the city far outweighed its importance.

[199] George Barros from the Institute for the Study of War characterized Russia's costly capture of Bakhmut as "a tactical victory" but "operational failure—contributing to the continued Russian strategic failure".

[204][188] Jon Roozenbeek, British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, likewise observed that securing Bakhmut would put the larger Donbas cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk within sufficient Russian artillery range.

[232] On 24 February, American General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed that the Russians had lost between 1,100 and 1,200 soldiers killed "down around" Bakhmut the previous day alone, a death toll he compared with the battles of Iwo Jima and Shiloh.

[248] High losses were highlighted by Yevgeny Prigozhin as one of the key points in his criticism of Russian Ministry of Defense which eventually culminated in him launching an armed rebellion in June 2023.