The situation around the DailyMail’s Bakhmut coverage just took another dark turn.
History Legends exposes how the media narrative around the Battle of Bakhmut is collapsing — revealing deeper layers of misinformation, chaos, and hard battlefield truths.
This isn’t just about one video — it’s about the bigger story they don’t want you to see.
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History Legends exposes how the media narrative around the Battle of Bakhmut is collapsing — revealing deeper layers of misinformation, chaos, and hard battlefield truths.
This isn’t just about one video — it’s about the bigger story they don’t want you to see.
🔥 LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and HIT the notification bell for more fearless analysis from History Legends!
#HistoryLegends
#Bakhmut
#UkraineConflict
#DailyMail
#MediaNarratives
#UkraineWar
#BattleForBakhmut
#Geopolitics
#WarReporting
#WorldNews
#BreakingNews
#MilitaryAnalysis
#MediaExposure
#RealNews
#ConflictZone
#TruthMatters
#UkraineFrontlines
#NarrativeCollapse
#GlobalPolitics
#WarCoverage
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NewsTranscript
00:00oh this is this is actually so dumb boys we got catfished
00:13if i hear the words human wave assaults one more time i give up immediately oh my god what did he
00:20say which no jokes the media nicknamed the ghost of backwood but the most important he says how
00:28backwood was the first time that trenches were used in the ukraine war the first time
00:35the first time my fear is that it was done to completely distort the true ratio of losses at
00:43this point of the battle would the daily mail really dare to do that so i wonder who told
00:49this story far from the truth the second tactic was wagner's human wave assaults
00:54okay i think we're done i were done my friends a lot of you have been bombarding me to make part
01:04two of the daily mail's video on the battle of bahamut yes i know it's been a while but i simply
01:10didn't have the willpower to go through this video again so i guess this one is for you for those that
01:16missed part one link will be in the description below don't forget to subscribe to the daily mail
01:23to support their efforts and as a disclaimer the wagner pmc is a bad organization composed of
01:30very very bad guys this video only adds historical context without further ado let's jump right in
01:37from this point on it becomes a case of diminishing returns russian casualties remain high throughout but
01:44that five to one ratio narrows considerably i i already regret doing this video the russians lost
01:52five times more soldiers than the ukrainians what is the source trust me bro and why is the ratio
01:59of losses suddenly changing don't know this is the type of documentary i love they just tell you
02:07things you have to take for granted and you're left with more questions than when you started ukraine
02:12is also expending some of its best troops whilst russia is only losing mercenaries and conscripts now you
02:19see the benefit of having covered the entire battle of bakhmurt is that you can't bullshit me
02:25for those that are new once again what russian conscripts is he talking about the people wagner
02:32recruited all did so voluntarily they're not conscripts same thing goes for the russian vdv units
02:39positioned on the flanks those are manned by volunteers however i remember one side making heavy use of
02:47actual conscripts do you remember this clip of this ukrainian soldier complaining about the lack
02:55of military training of newly mobilized personnel we have boys who were there for several days
03:02say they weren't that westerns or guys who were there also came up after three days at war
03:07flying over a horse, or did them leave now, no matter how much of that, oh, they utiliz yourself
03:12but then in the same day, they didn't even come back and keep them in the air, they went follow
03:14for three days, they sent out to Har peasant hause for the Polizei, bl., Amen, and blew the helicopter
03:18fire trench nou like that there was three days what they can do for
03:28everyone around that soldier suddenly got scared and very worried about his statement
03:38because he told the truth and of course that was quickly edited out of the version that was
03:44published online or what about this interview with this ukrainian journalist asked is it true
03:50that an unprepared fighter stays alive in bakhmut for four hours and just look at the guy's reaction
03:56no four hours seems a bit low it's more like six to eight or what about this segment the mobics were
04:04tactically retreating and were stopped by an officer of the ukrainian nkvd which you can
04:10identify with his different uniform follows a heated argument he tells them to go back the
04:16mobics say does not make sense from a military perspective to fight for this position they say
04:20there are only seven of them left they just can't take it anymore they're exhausted they're freezing
04:26suffering from frostbite they haven't eaten for days and then ask where all the other 500 men
04:32of our battalion to take that position instead of us to which the nkvd officer replies there's no one
04:39else so who is actually using conscripts and bakhmut wagner formerly incarcerated ukraine newly
04:48incarcerated by the end of february russian forces have advanced up to the bakhmutka river inside
04:56bakhmut itself i wish they would have explained in detail how the russians achieved this from a tactical
05:02perspective but only a bunch of nerds would even care remember when the uk's defense ministry reported
05:08in march 2023 ukraine war russian reservists fighting with shovels unbeknown to them a meme was born in
05:17the south they have reached the saversky donets canal and are now threatening to cut the road of
05:23life through ivaniska the other road of life this is so ridiculous even at the moment of recording
05:32nobody was like hold on what am i even saying as i stated in part one that was definitely not the
05:39road of life this is one of the biggest mistakes in the video road of life clearly implies the last
05:45usable supply road so it wasn't the one going through ivanivsky but this one going through
05:51kromove other than this yes this is generally speaking what happened they are also approaching
05:57the only other road out of the city nekromove in the north actually that's not entirely correct
06:05whenever the russians win fast forward the daily mail brushed over a very important part of the battle
06:10which surprise surprise goes against their narrative why did they do this because it would have shown the
06:17operational and tactical abilities of the wagner pmc two pincers are now advancing around bakhmut
06:24if russia can close them it will mean the destruction of tens of thousands of ukrainian
06:30soldiers inside but but i i thought the russians had no strategy how could this be possible what
06:37about the meat wave attacks that were just too effective this part requires some additional context
06:43all right let's jump back to 2023 that was the situation north of bakhmut at the beginning of january
06:502023 russian forces had pushed out of solidar crossed the bakhmutka river and stormed blahuadatne
06:57this allowed them to outflank ukrainian positions from the north from there they rolled back the
07:03ukrainian army in the sector by the 10th of february wagnerian forces had the ukrainians caught in a
07:09cauldron around krasnaura and paraskovivka this maneuver forced entire ukrainian units to abandon
07:15their positions by the 17th the russians had captured a five kilometer portion of the m3 highway
07:21north of bakhmut something super important that was not even mentioned in the video by the daily
07:27mail on the 18th wagner broke through west of yahidny by the end of february russian forces
07:32advanced another five kilometers and started pushing inside bakhmut proper as you can see the
07:38ukrainian garrison was about to be fully encircled and all this forced the ukrainians to abandon the east
07:43bank of the city anyway i find it very disappointing that from a historical and storytelling perspective
07:49that the daily mail didn't properly explain the battles that led to the fall of all the positions
07:55north of bakhmut despite this friction begins to develop between the russian military and wagner
08:00over who exactly is responsible for these successes prigozhin begins to complain that the russian mod
08:07is limiting his supplies of ammunition causing high casualties i don't remember the beef between
08:12shoigu and prigozhin to be about that issue at all the beef was that shoigu and the russian ministry
08:18of defense wanted to halt offensive operations in bakhmut in order to focus and prepare on blocking
08:25ukraine's upcoming spring offensive meanwhile prigozhin wanted to continue in bakhmut at all cost
08:31since he felt he was so close to bring a much-needed victory for russia and honestly the problem was that
08:37somewhat they were both right seeing these pincers closing ukrainian military intelligence privately
08:43warns zelensky that the situation in the city is catastrophic but rather than withdraw ukraine
08:50doubles down deploying its feared kraken special forces to keep the road of life open
08:57hmm i don't recall the kraken regiments playing such an important role in the battle of bakhmut
09:02i just went through my notes again and never have i mentioned the kraken regiment throughout the
09:08entire duration of the battle i mean on the daily mail's own map of the battle from march 2023 the
09:14kraken regiment is not even mentioned okay okay i just checked it's because this information comes
09:21from leaked documents that were only released after the battle i mean i guess anyway i think it's
09:28interesting that could explain why nobody mentioned the actions of the kraken regiment during this
09:34battle of bakhmut even on the youtube channel of the kraken regiments they have barely any footage from
09:40the battle of bakhmut all the videos either happened before or after the battle anyway as you can see in
09:47this video even high-ranking ukrainian commanders said there was no point in holding on to bakhmut
09:52especially with the very suitable defensive positions in chassevyar only a couple kilometers
09:58behind ukraine deciding to double down in bakhmut reminds me of this very famous formula
10:04see as you can see the more you around the more you're gonna find out the big picture what's
10:12important to remember is that during this time elite ukraine units were actually pulled out of the
10:17urban area of bakhmut to be increasingly replaced by mobics and territorial defense units bitter trench
10:24battles now break out in the north and south as both sides fight to the death over mere feet of ground
10:31despite high casualties ukrainians succeed in slowing and then stopping the russian advance
10:38oh my god what did he say high ukrainian casualties
10:43despite high casualties ukrainians watch out bro watch out bro slippery slope never forget the 5 to 1
10:55ratio jokes aside in this case there was indeed very intense fighting around this hilltop where the road
11:01of life bends to the west for weeks russians and ukrainians fought extremely hard over control of this hill
11:08with the russians inching their way towards that road followed by massive artillery shelling
11:14just take a look at this map can you see all the shell craters focused on that one spot all the trench
11:20lines converging to that area you can imagine the intensity of the fighting that took place there over
11:25control of the road of life i wish the daily mail focused a little bit more on this very important part
11:31of the battle just like i said in part one once again the design of the map is very sleek it's very
11:37aesthetic but it lacks the elevation of terrain and all the force that are now very important in the
11:43story as you can see here west of bakhmud there was some elevated terrain with lots of woods and this
11:49is where that road of life was passing through it's important because the russian battle plan was to get
11:55really high and capture the ridgelines which overlooked the entire city this drives prigogion wild
12:02the mercenary leader was hoping to earn easy brownie points with putin by taking bakhmud but he is now
12:09months behind schedule and watching his beloved wagner group the source of his power get butchered
12:15why are they depicting prigogion like a child like a madman at this point i'm wondering if the daily
12:23mail will even mention the fact that he went to the front right on the contact line for all his pr stunts
12:29something that no other commander in the ukraine war has ever done though the ukrainians have succeeded
12:36in stopping russia's encirclement wagner troops are now camped out dangerously close to the only two
12:43roads out of the city both are well within artillery range this is not the napoleonic wars okay i don't
12:49want to repeat myself but like i said in part one they should have used the word fire control and to be
12:55honest this road west of iwanivsky was unusable because this bridge was destroyed so the only road
13:02coming from the west that could really reach bakhmud was this one going through chromovay
13:07and hence the term road of life it was also a large paved road which facilitated the back and forth of
13:14all the vehicles apart from the road of life there were a multitude of smaller country roads and dirt paths
13:20that could be used by the afu until the mud season struck and this complicates getting supplies into
13:25the city and casualties back out again as convoys have to dodge explosions the whole way
13:31wop wop wop pause i can't believe it that video they showed was definitely not
13:38geolocated there this is a big mistake you can clearly see that the high-rise buildings here are part of
13:45the bakhmud citadel and there are no such buildings in iwanivsky so i went digging into my old bakhmud
13:52archives and after spending way too much time on this i'm definitely on the spectrum but i found
13:59another video that was recorded at the exact same spot but just like on the hub it's the full version
14:05with better definition as you can see it's the same pontoon bridge as in the daily mails video
14:10only thing this is not here located in iwanivsky but surprise surprise in romove the line should
14:17point right here if we use satellite imagery that was a small river and the bridge over it that was
14:23replaced by pontoon crossing we see a long road going straight with some terrain elevation and high-rise
14:30buildings on the horizon boys this is our spot not iwanivsky all this mess because some intern wrote that
14:39the road going through iwanivsky was the road of life no and the funniest thing is that when the
14:45entire daily mails team gathered to review the video not one person noticed that mistake at this
14:51point ukrainian generals know they cannot hold on forever but they'll be damned if they're going down
14:57without a fight was this documentary financed by michael bay this is what i want from american war movie
15:06not from my commanders in early april they give up their defenses on the bakhmutka river
15:12and retreat to the west oh yeah they just give it up they're generous they just give up their positions
15:19bakhmut was only taken because the ukrainians willingly retreated here brother take it and go
15:26okay you mean they got outmaneuvered and defeated by mere pmc also the daily mail didn't show
15:33prigojin's photo op when he took pictures next to the t-34 monument on the east bank of bakhmut in early
15:39march prigojin films himself raising the russian flag over bakhmut town hall and claims the city has
15:47been captured but this is far from the truth shameful display they're really trying so hard to portray him
15:55as a lunatic context prigojin said that because his men had taken control of the administration
16:01building at the center of the city that bakhmut was now legally theirs and captured he said that on
16:08purpose to troll just like so many of his other statements prigojin even talks about how his men will
16:15carry the same banner on the western side of bakhmut which surprise surprise he says is still held by
16:21ukrainian troops so i wonder who told this story far from the truth ukraine is making an historic last
16:30stand defending an area of just 20 city blocks on the far western edge of the city wait hold on
16:38why did our friend start removing the blue tokens let's go back maybe i didn't see properly okay
16:46in this frame there are 13 tokens and now there are only six i actually don't understand why he would
16:53do that my fear is that it was done to completely distort the true ratio of losses at this point of
17:01the battle would the daily mail really dare to do that yeah baby
17:06their objective is now to hold up russian forces in this area for as long as possible
17:14while elsewhere kiev prepares for its 2023 counter-offensive so yes that's actually true
17:21but we can very well say the same thing the other way around how many ukrainian forces were wasted
17:27just to hold a couple city blocks in bakhmut that clearly everyone knew would be lost eventually
17:33despite punishing conditions and near constant attacks from the russians the ukrainians defy all
17:41the odds and hold this tiny piece of territory for six weeks what makes me laugh is the language used
17:50in this video despite punishing conditions a historic last stand defy all the odds the russians advance
18:00like cowards and the ukrainians retreat like heroes all this against former prison inmates with barely
18:07any military training wielding shovels and now with barely any artillery support in front of them
18:13ukrainian elite special forces i actually wonder who had the odds stacked against them i mean this is what
18:20they said in the video oh my bad yes my bad i forgot about the human waves the human waves
18:27this proves to be the straw that breaks prigozhin's back and his mind
18:32oh i don't even know what to comment to this throughout april and may as the fighting rages
18:40he takes to telegram multiple times to rail against sergey shoigu and valery gurasimov
18:46who he brands fat cats cowards and traitors this is dangerous both shoigu and gurasimov are close
18:54allies of putin they have the army at their back but prigozhin seems not to care he accuses them of
19:00a grand conspiracy in which they are deliberately withholding ammo from his troops in order to get
19:05them killed it's not really a conspiracy when what prigozhin said was not wrong it's now almost
19:11certain that the russian ministry of defense indeed withheld ammunition from wagner and earlier in
19:17february the mod banned wagner from continuing its recruitment campaign in prisons from a military
19:23perspective withholding ammunition wasn't necessarily meant to eliminate wagner but to physically block
19:29them and force them to stop the battle of bahmut that was draining too many resources the russian
19:35army command wanted to stock up on artillery shells to counter the upcoming spring offensive which was now
19:41imminent from the high command's perspective what was the point in winning in bahmut if all the
19:47other sectors collapsed all these actions were done to force prigozhin back in line on may 20th
19:54the last of ukraine's troops withdraw from the city their supplies have almost totally run out
20:00and if they stay any longer they risk being surrounded and wiped out that's it oh no that's all they're
20:08going to say about the battle of bahmut the video is not even done what can they possibly say from now on
20:14no mention of how the musicians outmaneuvered the enemy and transferred their troops to flank these
20:19ukrainian strongholds from the north no videos or pictures of all the house-to-house fighting either
20:25because trenches web spoilers i'm getting ahead of myself no mention of how fab bombs were first used
20:33against bahmut and with great effectiveness as they destroyed entire city blocks thus allowing wagner's
20:40infantry to advance no mention of the large-scale counter-attacks launched by the third assault
20:46brigade as of in early may along the road of life but also around ivanivsky and along the siversky
20:52donetsk canal this is clearly an incomplete account of the battle of bahmut my theory is the following
20:59the daily mail chained an intern in the basement and told him he has 24 hours to write a script on
21:05the battle of bahmut or else it's back to writing about megan markle russia's troops now occupy
21:12bahmut but in the outskirts ukrainian commandos and snipers remain to make their lives as difficult
21:19as possible oh no i can't believe what i just heard snipers and commandos really this is actually
21:28so bad there's no way this is not a parody and the worst is that even with their pro-ukraine bias
21:35instead of talking about the as of counter-attacks that rolled back russian gains actual things we can
21:42see on the map they prefer to talk about these anecdotal stories of snipers which no jokes the
21:49media nicknamed the ghosts of bahmut i'm convinced that the intern that worked on this documentary
21:56used enemy at the gates for his inspiration there is no other way to explain this entire mess
22:03prigozhin has no intention of his remaining men becoming targets for these sharpshooters
22:09in just a few days wagner completely withdraws leaving just the russian army and the proxy republics
22:16behind eh voila this is purely for show as a way to continue their narrative because in reality
22:23the front line didn't look like this let's play a game of find the differences on the left is how
22:29the daily mail depicted the front line around bahmut in may 2023 and on the right the true situation
22:37around the city at the same moment but rather than head back to base prigozhin masses what is left of
22:43his mercenaries and heads for moscow instead with what we're already done now understand how girls must
22:50feel like isn't this video about the battle of bahmut we're 14 minutes in and the main story about the battle
22:57is over what was the point of skipping through the battles of solidar the pocket of krasnaora
23:03paraskovivka the breakthrough in yahidne the urban battle inside bahmut as of counter-attacks
23:10so many important parts of the battle were just never mentioned all this so the daily mail could speak
23:16about prigozhin's rebellion it seems bahmut was actually the subplot it was the introduction
23:24boys we got catfished anyway back to the story they didn't leave for moscow right away wagner left
23:33bahmut in late may early june leaving only bieber and doleg behind and only three weeks later did the
23:40mutiny take place prigozhin's rebellion begins here in rostov-on-don the command center for all of
23:49russia's operations in ukraine he quickly seizes control and films himself ranting at the base
23:55commanders about the ineffectiveness of the russian military but he doesn't stop there next he
24:02assembles a column of thousands of troops tanks and armored vehicles i should have turned off my brain
24:08before watching this remember what i said in 2023 rigozhin claimed that his 25 000 men were involved
24:15in this march on moscow however people on the ground say 150 pieces of equipment others said 400 pieces
24:22in four separate columns or perhaps it was the same column spotted four times in my opinion it was closer
24:28to 150 vehicles which according to my estimates would mean 1500 wagnerians involved in this operation
24:35plus maybe a couple hundreds in arastov meaning that over 20 000 musicians of the orchestra did not
24:42participate in this armed protest yet on wikipedia they stated 8 000 men let's just check out the source
24:49lower estimate per the daily telegraph citing anonymous sources from uk security services
24:57and the upper estimate by prigozhin himself who had every incentive to lie to hype up his rebellion
25:07you see most of these wagnerian vehicles were just trucks m-wraps but also buses and pickup trucks
25:13nothing fancy overall a very light formation with that being said wagner's mutiny had its fair share of
25:21memes like this girl taking graduation pictures with this wagnerian t90s in the background or how
25:27everyone in town went to take pictures with the rebels and as you can see for the rails the rebels
25:32painted red z's on their vehicles the column quickly heads north up the m4 highway towards moscow
25:42branding this a march for justice he says his plan is to take over the russian mod and kick out shoigu and
25:49gerasimov but putin is having none of it he denounces the march as a coup calls wagner traitors
25:56and vows revenge putin had not a choice really to keep his figure of authority he had to crush this
26:03rebellion with an iron fist for the next few hours chaos reigns the russian army gets into a shooting
26:10match with wagner around voronezh but apparently cannot stop the march strike one wagner actually
26:17bypassed russian security forces in varonezh via the lipiec oblast strike two i don't think there
26:23were any firefights really it was mostly aircrafts that were shot down by wagner's air defense
26:29allegedly up to six helicopters were shot down as well as one il-22m airborne command center plane
26:36but then with wagner closing in on moscow prigozhin suddenly calls off the march and heads home why
26:43exactly he does this remains a mystery a what a a mystery this is the sort of answer i expect from
26:52the history channel when talking about aliens wagner's columns were physically stopped south of the oka river
27:00russian security forces removed all the bridges and reinforced the crossing points there's no way
27:07wagner forces could have passed these roadblocks without massive casualties on both sides prigozhin
27:13must have also seen how the local population actually fully supported the president by establishing
27:19their own roadblocks to stop wagner prigozhin says he did it to prevent bloodshed but that hardly seems
27:25credible what how is that not credible what is it then please enlighten us belarus dictator alexander
27:33lukashenko takes credit for brokering a peace though that doesn't seem very likely either as a
27:39reminder wagner did relocate to belarus right after the mutiny but lukashenko brokering an agreement not
27:46credible source uk's ministry of defense whatever the truth putin survived and wagner was broken up
27:53shortly after its remaining fighters absorbed into the regular military or exile to africa whoa
27:59congrats finally a statement that is factual and without any mistakes well this is also what boosted
28:06the russian army's offensive capabilities in the summer of 2023 instead of having all these assaulted
28:12detachments regrouped in one battle corps the ministry of defense spread them out that way every
28:18russian brigade had its own assault storm detachment and in certain sectors in the zaporozhye front
28:25former wagnerian and prison inmates were also used as decoy to hold false positions in order to set up
28:33traps against the advancing ukrainian columns prigozhin's fate was sealed in late august when his plane
28:39exploded taking off from moscow with the wagner leader and all his senior lieutenants on board and
28:46this is uh not a true most of his lieutenants are actually still alive one of them even resurfaced
28:52recently like commander zombie the mastermind behind operation pipeline in kursk there is little doubt
28:59about who was ultimately responsible the one who shall not name is it me or this entire segment about
29:06prigozhin's rebellion was really not necessary first because they butchered the facts but also because it
29:12took away precious time from actual events that happened in bakhmut now let's clear the board and
29:18discuss the tactics that turned bakhmut into one of the bloodiest battles of the 21st century i swear
29:25if i hear the words human wave assaults one more time i quit i give up immediately let's go first trench
29:35warfare before the battle of bakhmut began properly ukrainian defenders had watched russia take several
29:41dunetsk and this is shansk using huge artillery barrages they fired shells at the cities until
29:47there was nothing left to defend then advanced into the ruins and took them over it doesn't even make
29:53sense this is the last straw that is going to break my mind the footage doesn't even match what they're
29:59saying the buildings are clearly still standing and they would make excellent defensive positions
30:04okay i agree maybe i'm nitpicking but the most important he says how bakhmut was the first time that
30:10trenches were used in the ukraine war c'est grave the first time the first time who's gonna tell them
30:18that trenches already covered the donbass landscape starting in 2014 even then in may 2022 months before
30:27the start of the battle of bakhmut i released a video titled trench warfare is back to stop them
30:33from doing the same thing in bakhmut the ukrainians dug trench networks trenches are effective against
30:40artillery because shells mostly kill people with shrapnel white hot fragments of metal thrown in all
30:46directions when they explode trenches protect against this by shielding soldiers from these flying
30:53fragments trenches also protect against infantry assaults attackers are almost completely exposed
31:00whilst charging at the trench whilst defenders are almost completely protected until the last moment
31:06okay bro maybe 1916 but not right now in ukraine we have plenty of footage of how trench assaults are
31:13actually carried out in the ukraine war first artillery preparation as the defenders are pinned down
31:20armored vehicles quickly drive along open fields along paths that have been demined and disembark the
31:26riflemen right into the tree lines right on top of the trenches the vehicles then use their firepower
31:33to provide direct fire support for the attacking soldiers while the infantry mobs up one dugout after
31:39another these assaults actually go extremely fast and if done properly the defender might actually lose
31:45more troops than the attacking force honestly maybe i should do a video on the tactics of the ukraine war
31:52because this is actually ridiculous the second tactic was wagner's human wave assaults
31:58okay i think we're done i were done one hour later how can this be tactic when there's not a single
32:06footage of russian soldiers using human wave attacks none zero out of all the gopros and drones flying
32:14around zero evidence it's as if you have a friend that claims he's traveled all around the world
32:21visited every country on earth but he can't show you a single picture of him abroad and when you
32:26ask him about it he starts getting nervous oh you don't trust me bro i thought you were my friend
32:32oh but i actually never posted the pictures whoops i lost the hard drive oh they were on my usb key i lost it
32:38the mercenaries use this tactic for two reasons first the trenches first reason the trenches
32:46what is that supposed to mean and second the composition of wagner's forces throughout the
32:52battle wagner had a ready supply of prison conscripts with barely enough training to operate a rifle
32:58and a small but very elite group of mercenary soldiers like i told you earlier in february 2023
33:04wagner was banned from recruiting in prisons so no wagner didn't have a ready supply of prison inmates
33:12now he does bring up a good point how was wagner so efficient despite the majority of its fighters
33:17having so little training let's see if he's going to elaborate on that or um if we're going to go
33:23full circle with the entire um wagner's human wave assaults the last thing the evgeny prigozhin wanted to
33:30do was waste his valuable mercenaries in frontal assaults on the ukrainian trenches so he developed a
33:38tactic of sending in the prisoners as cannon fodder their job was simply to advance towards the ukrainians
33:44until they got shot at sorry what absorbed the bullets i'm actually in shock right now i i'm speechless
33:52bro this is not age of empires this almost always resulted in the prisoners getting killed but none of
33:58that mattered to prigozhin so why did you say prigozhin lost his mind when his wagnerians were getting
34:05butchered make it make sense what mattered was that while shooting at the prisoners the ukrainians
34:12would be forced to reveal their positions once wagner knew where the ukrainians were artillery would be
34:19called down on top of them and elite mercenaries dispatched on flanking attacks to take them out oh this
34:25is this is actually so dumb the front is continuous you cannot just outflank positions like that
34:36that easily the intern should have stuck with covering megan markle allow me to explain long
34:43story short wagner used its veterans and elite forces to recon and storm enemy positions once the trench
34:50bastion was captured they would pull out and be replaced with the prison inmates detachments
34:55to hold the trench lines yes for them to take the brunt of ukrainian artillery and drone strikes
35:01they would also use their shovels to improve the field works they were in and build communication
35:07trenches for the second wave because anyone can do that you don't need any military training
35:13this means more often than not prison inmates fell while defending the trenches and not while attacking
35:20them it's literally basic logic in other words the witcher is more historically accurate than this
35:27entire video according to progression's own figures 20 000 wagner men died in the battle an estimated 17 000
35:38of whom were conscript it's interesting because only about 11 000 inmates were reported as kia by media zona
35:45over the course of the battle and about 1700 wagnerian veterans meaning one veteran for six inmates so
35:53statistically speaking wagner veterans suffered higher casualties than their share of the pmc's force
35:59overall we're talking about a total of roughly 13 000 fatalities compared to prigogine's 20 000
36:05figure the difference is 50 that's huge but it also proved effective in its own brutal way
36:12wagner avoided wasting precious artillery shells look i don't know what you think guys but i think
36:17soldiers are more precious than artillery rounds ukraine meanwhile chewed through some of its best troops
36:23and most valuable ammunition trying and ultimately failing to hold these attacks back well chris chris
36:30slow down you're entering dangerous territory and we know ukraine also sacrificed a lot of mobilized
36:36personnel to hold bakhmut they point out that before bakhmut ukraine was losing roughly one city per week
36:43to the advancing russians but this city held out for 11 months yes but it but it misses the point it
36:51misses the big picture first of all bakhmut is not the only settlement to have fallen to the russians
36:57during this campaign and apart from work nearing troops the russian armed forces lost very little manpower
37:03between october 2022 and may 2023 meaning all their units were fully manned and fresh to counter the
37:10ukrainian summer offensive meaning for eight months you can focus all its energy on bakhmut instead of
37:17attacking the weakened russian positions it was a major strategic mistake in other words bakhmut was a
37:24brilliant diversion for russia that allowed them to regain some much needed strength critics say that
37:31politics got in the way of tactics and an earlier withdrawal could have conserved much needed forces
37:37for later offensive absolutely politics did get in the way so many ukraine commanders said there was
37:43no more point in holding bakhmut but zelensky insisted in defending it at all costs ring the bell
37:51just like in korsk it also tied down some of ukraine's best formations so that when their summer
37:57counter-offensive began just a few weeks later it was new and inexperienced units leading the charge
38:03and yes many ukrainian units lost their veterans only to be replaced by mobilized personnel
38:10whichever side you agree with there is little doubt that bakhmut deserves to be remembered as one of the
38:16bloodiest battles of the 21st century okay it was very difficult for me to go through all this but
38:23i think it's finally mission accomplished that's all i have for you today let me know in the comment
38:28section what you thought of my analysis if you're new to the channel make sure to like and subscribe
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