Hey, whatever makes you happy I guess, you're happy that dictator and war criminal lead brainwashed country finally took Bakhmut I'm happy they've shown 9 months of incompetence, lost as much as 20k troops in the process, and overall underdelivered by every metric you could think of all in order to claim what is now a pile of rubble.
But hey perspective I guess because it is certainly not about a lack of critical thinking.
Anyway, I want to thank you, your pathetic post and hindsight always act as a stark reminder that Russian propaganda can be effective on the most feeble mind of our society.

I am happy for you. Yes, really! After such a long time you can finally free yourself from imploding and post the statement you already prepared five months ago in anticipation when the "second most powerful military in the world" started their winter offensive to conquer nothing more than a small town while losing tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles in the process.

Bakhmut will be Russian forever, like Kharkiv and Kherson are forever, too! 🤡

I hope Russia, especially Putin, suffers severely for it's actions since 2008. It's as if the Soviet Union never left. Some shitty countries stay shitty.

I also have to laugh at the "not much left to take to incorporate the 4 new regions"

Those 4 regions being Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

One of those Oblasts, Kherson, which Russians recently lost and got pushed back across the river, so they have very little chance of ever retaking it, Khreson represents a population of 333,737 as of 2015 and the 2nd highest city in the Kherson Oblast region was Oleshky Raion at 71,888.

Then Zaporizhzhia which Russians never came close to taking and represents a population of 757,650 as of 2015, the 2nd highest city in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast region being Melitopol at 156,022.

But Russia who spent 9 months trying to take the 57th largest city in Ukraine is now somehow going to take the rest of Zaporizhzhia and cross the Kherson river again to retake Kherson, Lmao. Must be some mythical Russian forces coming soon, don't worry guys, the Russians are holding back, all according to plan, they've already destroyed more HIMARs than exist in Ukraine!

This is really the levels that Russian stooges have dropped to, from taking Kyiv in 3 days to celebrating Russia take Bakhmut in 9 months, thousands of lives and hundreds of equipment. Russia has gone from "We'll take Ukraine" to "Maybe we'll hold onto Luhansk and Donetsk" They haven't even taken all of Donetsk or Luhansk yet and that is where they started!

So basically Russia's too stupid to admit it's doing worse than they thought they'd do?

Russia's imperialism never left. We simply ignored it, a lot of us tried too hard to cater to Putin, we tried to bring him with us, some of us thought we could change him, some of us simply didn't care. We turned a blind eye to Transnistria, to Georgia, to Chechnya, to Crimea, we mostly let them off the hook for their atrocities in Syria and their blatant and dangerous assassinations on British soil using Novichok.

Putin has always been a monster and those surrounding him, they've always been bloodthirsty assholes but we let them off the hook, it ain't even like they tried to hide it but we kept giving Russia chance after chance until now. Like Russia threatening Britain ain't anything new either, it has been going on for years now, so I'm glad we're finally giving them a middle finger to fuck off and I'm embarrassed by the British citizens who want to bend over backwards for Russia.

I don't think Russia will change even after this but whatever, they can be a social pariah, they can be on their own, as long as Ukraine wins is all I care about, and we can get Ukraine into NATO and Russia will never threaten them again because they're cowards against NATO and we can ensure with sanctions they never get a military capability to be a threat to any neighbours in the long term.

I'm surprised Ukraine managed to hold Bakhmut for so long.
If I recall the wagner chief Prigozhin offered to reveal Russian troop locations to Ukraine if the Ukrainian army pulled out of Bakhmut. I suppose it's a bit copium of me to hope that Bakhmut fell due to a deal being made, resulting in the Ukrainian army getting a bunch of intel out of this. I doubt anyone on the Ukrainian side would trust Prigozhin anyway...

Either way, spending 9 months to destroy Bakhmut and take whatever ruins are remaining, it's pretty lame progress, maybe even regression considering the Russian side performed the "goodwill gesture" in Kherson to accumulate the manpower to achieve this.

That was Ukraine who said that so it's likely not true and Ukrainian psyops trying to spread shit because Prigozhin and Shoigu hate each other. I would not be surprised if Prigozhin pulls Wagner back now and sends them to Africa to spread shit there because I think Prigozhin actually sees the situation better than Russia and realises it's an unwinnable war but we shall see what he does soon. I don't think Wagnerites who spent months trying to take Bakhmut will have enough fuel in the tank to go take on newly formed Ukrainian brigades across other frontlines.

Now Prigozhin gets paid for taking Bakhmut and gets the credit of taking it and if/when Russia loses it, Prigozhin takes none of the blame because Wagner is no longer there and their only responsibility is offence, not defence. Unfortunately Prigozhin kind of comes out of this with a little win but Russia as a whole it was a complete sunk cost, pyrrhic victory.

Ukraine lost it because it simply couldn't be held onto anymore, Wagner's tactic (and well Russia's tactic) to taking Bakhmut was to just completely flatten it, bomb it to hell and that means Ukraine doesn't have any defensible positions to hold, there is literally nothing left to defend, so they have no choice but to leave, on the flip side though, that leaves it harder for Russians to defend as well, especially if Ukraine pushes their flanks, but that isn't Prigozhin's problem anymore.

If Ukraine does push the flanks, Russia has a choice of abandoning Bakhmut or risking encirclement. Or Ukraine may just keep them distracted at Bakhmut still whilst they build an offensive elsewhere, not a single newly formed brigade has been sent to Bakhmut so far so it clearly isn't going to be the area of the offensive but more a way to distract Russian forces and even with them holding the city, they'll need to keep feeding Russians into the grinder if they want to maintain it.

Ukraine will need to be careful that Russia doesn't push from Bakhmut straight to the next city, so hopefully they have sent up multiple defensive lines beyond Bakhmut. If they have then they probably just need to hold that area until the offensive starts and Russia scrambles to reinforce the frontlines. Rather than actually trying to encircle Russia in Bakhmut.

Then Russians are just as untrustworthy as before and nothing will change that? That's what it looks like to me.

I think Bukhmut was used as a death trap for Wagner

anyone who gets joy from this destruction of people’s lives is a truly miserable person, Russia will pay - literally - and face God’s justice

destroyed cities are Russian-speaking in the biggest part, there is really no logic to this suicide mission of Putin