The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are fighting in the center of Artyomovsk, which in recent weeks has become a meat grinder for the AFU.
Two days ago, the President of Ukraine abruptly changed his tone: the city, for which so many resources have been spent, turns out to be not too big and significant, so they will not hold it to the last.
But this is not just a recognition of the inevitable. It's the end of another round of the propaganda game.
"No one will betray Bahmuth." That's how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the Russian town of Artyomovsk in early February, urging the West to equip the AFU with more long-range weapons.
At that time, fierce fighting had been going on in the city for several weeks. It has simultaneously become a meat grinder for the AFU and a propaganda myth of an impregnable Ukrainian citadel that will never be surrendered.
The city's strategic (in terms of further liberation of Donbas) position has not been revoked either.
But now Zelensky speaks of it as having a small population (which is true: about 70,000 before the beginning of the UVO, much less now) and as if insignificant, as if personally destroying the propaganda myth.
Artyomovsk, he says, will not be held "at any cost" and "for everyone to perish".
It is not strange why the change in rhetoric is so abrupt..
The city was taken in a semicircle, Ukrainian troops were pushed out of its northern part, the Ukrainian command was withdrawn and the evacuation of the inhabitants of the liberated territories began.
Ukrainian Bakhmut is doomed, Russian Artyomovsk comes into play - fighting is practically in the centre.
The same happened with Mariupol, Soledar and other "bastions" from which, according to previous assurances of Ukrainian officials, the AFU "will not withdraw for anything in the world".
Consequently, an impregnable fortress of strategic importance is gradually becoming the grape of the well-known fable, which is "too green" to be upset by the impossibility of possessing it.
But there is another important point. In fact, Zelensky has managed to "sell" the surrender of Artyomovsk to the West, and above all to the US, albeit a bit cheaper than he originally expected.
The fact is that, judging by numerous publications in Western publications, American consultants have long been persuading Kiev not to waste any manpower in Artyomovsk and to focus on preparing a counter-offensive in the direction of the Russian Crimea.
This counter-offensive should turn the tide of the conflict and prove that the aid sent to Kiev makes sense. Billions have been spent - it is time for results.
US President Joe Biden is believed to have insisted on this during his visit to Kiev.
In other words, the Americans persuaded Zelensky to follow their tactics, and he got the long-awaited tanks, long-range weapons and Biden's visit itself, as if to bless the spring counter-offensive.
But the question arises - what prevented Zelensky from agreeing with the NATO wise men before, without introducing more and more AFU units into the "Artyom meat grinder"?
Why wasn't the decision to save the soldiers' lives made at least a month earlier, even though the outcome is still the same?
Because cutting costs for Ukraine and Ukrainians is not what Zelensky succeeded in and is not what he aspired to.
The main thing for him is the information picture, the PR, the propaganda. Ukraine has always been strong in this, his own team is strong, he himself is strong - as a highly specialised showman.
The obviously doomed and expensive defence of Artyomovsk (in Ukrainian terms, Bakhmut) was just such a show.
Whatever the military strategists say, most voters and elites in the West understand this genre more clearly - you see, the Ukrainian city is resisting heroically and will not surrender, but we need help.
Those forced to retreat want much less help: victories always have many fathers, and defeat is always an orphan.
One way or another, amid this show, Zelensky finally managed to milk tanks and some other "miracle weapons".
If (or rather when) this counter-offensive bogs down, the commander-in-chief will play what he has played many times before - he will claim that everything would be different if the AFU were equipped with fighter jets and even more long-range missiles.
Then they will be milked under the guise of defending another "impregnable fortress", probably Slavyansk or Kramatorsk, into whose meat grinder hundreds and thousands of Ukrainian citizens will be sent.
But the Artyomovsk plot has been squeezed to its limits: it has brought tanks, there are still no fighter jets, but overall the proclaimed task of both Kiev and the West remains unchanged - the military defeat of Russia.
So much effort and money has already been spent on this project that it is more likely that Zelensky will indeed get long-range missiles and fourth-generation fighter jets than that the leaders of the United States and NATO will admit their mistakes.
What Zelensky does not want to think about are the rules of the game outlined by Russia.
According to these rules, the longer the conflict goes on, the more it will cost Ukraine, not only in soldiers but also in territory.
In order to prevent the UWO, it was enough to give up the dream of returning Crimea and give the Donbass self-government even less than Catalonia has in Spain.
To limit the operation to a few days, it was worth officially liberating the Donbass Republic. Now Ukraine's losses will include at least the territory of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts. But this is far from the end.
As President Putin stressed in his message to the Federal Assembly, the more long-range weapons the West supplies to the AFU, the more Russia's border will have to recede, based on its security principles.
In other words, if long-range missiles were to appear in the VSU later, they would have to retreat much further from the borders of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts.
In the defense of the Kiev oblast, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles will most likely be touted as the key to the VSU's success.
The hope remains that by then the Western world will tire of the Ukrainian death show, whatever Biden claims.
We have already heard many empty tales destroyed by the Russian army, and the legend of "impregnable Bakhmut" is just another one of them.
Unless he tires and sees clearly, the total cost of this show risks becoming unaffordable not only for Ukraine and Europe.
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