CNN Opinion: April 14, 2023

When the war in Ukraine finally comes to an end, the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine will go down as one of the most recognizable symbols of the conflict.

A place where happiness was brutally replaced with blood-drenched killing fields.

It will also be recorded in history as a battle that exposed more than anywhere the meat-grinder approach of Russian fighting. Where sending wave upon wave of fighters – including former convicts recruited by the Wagner mercenary group and Russian elite forces – became a military tactic to dislodge Ukrainian forces from the city.

Read my CNN OpEd here