BACKFIRED, WITH 20,000 KIA: For months, against the advice of some senior U.S. military officials, Ukraine has stubbornly held on to the largely-destroyed town of Bakhmut, successfully tying down Russian forces and inflicting heavy casualties while buying time for its counter-invasion force to coalesce.

Ukraine has lost some of its best, battle-hardened troops, but its strategy has decimated and demoralized Russia’s conscript and convict army that has been under orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to take Bakhmut so he could tout some progress on the battlefield as the war that was supposed to take three days dragged into year two.