Looks pretty solid that Ukr will withdraw from Bakhmut, they are hemmed in, and the Ru having been making incremental advances on the flanks to the point where they could get surrounded.
That said: the Russians have paid an astonishing price for a town the size of East Kilbride (insert joke here..) that has been levelled to the point where it looks like Ypres in 1917. We think the Russians have suffered about 10,000 casualties within 5 miles of Bakhmut, and that given what Russian battlefield medicine is like, that means 8,000+ fatalities.
We think that (roughly) the Bakhmut front has used about 1 in 3 of every single Russian artillery shell fired in Ukraine in the last month, and 1 in 2 of every fast jet or attack helicopter sortie flown over Ukraine.
We think that something like 50-60% of the entire Russian Spring offensive in Ukraine has been used up to get to the point where Bakhmut falls.
Ukraine has certainly taken casualties, and they have started to rise significantly as the Russian pincer movement has got tighter - Ukraine has been using Bakhmut as a meat grinder for the Russian Army, and has done so very successfully, but it's starting to cost them more than they can afford to keep it going.
The question now is timing - within the next week would be my take from the messaging - and whether Ukraine can complete a fighting withdrawal from the pocket and keep it's force there intact and able to fight another day, or whether the pocket will be destroyed with the Ukrainians still in there.
I'd put reasonable money on the former, not least because the Ukrainians have shown themselves able to conduct hugely complex ground operations, and the Russians just haven't - I don't see the Russian inf/armour as being able to constantly push the Ukr while they withdraw and be able to keep the artillery on the Ukrainians as they move. Usually the Ru go in two stages - artillery first, blast the shit out of everything, then stop fires and let the Inf/armour move forward. Doing both at the same time in a coordinated fashion seems beyond them.
It will be a disappointment to Ukr, but in purely military terms it's done it's job - it's blunted the much feared Ru spring offensive, and now the Ukrainians have got bigger fish to fry. They have their own spring offensive, they've got lots of new tanks, guns and IFV to do it with, and they simply need all the manpower and fires they can get to to be able to take advantage of the gains they think they can make through manouvere warfare.
Compared to that, losing Bakhmut is small beer.
