May 2022 – May 20, 2023 · Eastern Ukraine (Donbas) Theater
May 2022 – May 20, 2023
The longest and deadliest battle of the war. The Wagner Group, Prigozhin's mercenary army that recruited convicts from Russian prisons, led the assault on the small city of Bakhmut over ten months of brutal urban and trench warfare. Ukraine chose to fight for every block, turning Bakhmut into an attritional nightmare for both sides. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble. By the time Wagner raised its flag over the city's ruins on May 20, both sides had suffered catastrophic losses estimated at tens of thousands each.
Commanders