Put aside the claims and counter-claims. It’s clear that Russia’s best-known mercenary has taken enough of Bakhmut after ten months and perhaps 40,000 deaths to claim to Putin that it has fallen.
It’s equally clear that if Ukrainian forces have withdrawn they haven’t withdrawn far. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister and soldiers on the ground say instead of occupying the devastated Donbas city they now have it at least half-encircled; a case, perhaps, of reculer pour mieux sauter.
Meanwhile, F-16s are coming (more below).
So what? Yevgeny Prigozhin’s declaration of victory on Saturday still matters.
Strategy. Prigozhin’s claim, made on Saturday and endorsed by Putin on Sunday, raises three questions: Is it true? If so, is it reversible? If so, would that be worth the effort for Ukraine?
Weapons. Zelensky’s trip to Japan, which the UK’s Rishi Sunak claims was his idea, was a diplomatic coup but also a logistical one. Germany promised more fighting vehicles. The US said it reckons Ukraine now has all the weapons it’s been promised. And Biden finalised his painfully slow U-turn on fighters. The US will lift re-export bans and assist with pilot training. Third countries will be free to revive Ukraine’s air force so it can control its skies
Those F-16s. Why all the fuss? Three factors are worth considering:
They’re available. More than 3,000 F-16s have been built. Many overseas buyers including the Netherlands (24) and Denmark (30) are now replacing them with F-35s, leaving hardly-used late-model F-16s available for Kyiv.
They’re effective. Ukraine says they’re four or five times more capable than the Soviet-built MiGs flying against Ukraine, and it’s true that a) they can launch “standoff” weapons including air-launched cruise missiles without ever coming in range of Russian air defences; and b) they were conceived in the cold war by John Boyd and the “fighter mafia” to be more manoeuvrable than the US F-15 and the Soviet MiG 23, and have outperformed them ever since, notably in Iraq.
They hog the limelight. While the question of whether or not to arm Ukraine with F-16s has been exhaustively litigated in the media and the corridors of power, shipments of artillery, tanks and ammunition have proceeded relatively unreported, which suits Ukraine and her allies well.
Further reading: Boyd: the Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Course of War, by Robert Coram, is that rare military biography that transcends the genre to reveal profound truths about how humans organise, lead, and follow.