Bakhmut Still Holds As Ukraine Punches Back

Though Wagner troops gained more ground north of Bakhmut, Ukraine appears to have won valuable breathing room to the south.

In the process, they have deftly illustrated another key principle in systems theory applied to warfare: the age-old tactic of letting your opponent commit themselves to a move so you can chop them off at the knees when they stumble.

Now, it is still early days, and these gains might prove ephemeral.

Conditions on any battlefield can be very fluid, despite all the talk of the…