Poltava to Bakhmut: How Old Battles Echo Through Today’s War

The thunder of cannons that shook the fields outside Poltava in 1709 and the relentless artillery that devastated the cityscape of Bakhmut in 2023 are separated by over three centuries. Yet the historical continuities between these two epicentres of conflict on Ukrainian soil reveal that the wars fought here are more than episodes of military engagement; they are contests for civilisation, identity and imperial legacy. To understand the full emotional, cultural, and strategic weight of modern battles like Bakhmut, one must look backwards — to Poltava, where a different empire struggled to define its future in blood and fire.

The Battle of Poltava: Birth of the Russian Empire

The Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709 marked the end of Swedish hegemony in Northern Europe and the beginning of Russia’s rise as a great European power. Tsar Peter I, later called “the Great”, defeated Charles XII of Sweden, whose forces had marched deep into Ukrainian lands seeking to unseat Moscow’s growing dominance. The Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa, who had allied himself with Sweden in a last-ditch attempt to secure Ukrainian autonomy, was decisively defeated, and his name was thereafter cursed in Russian historiography and Orthodox theology.

Poltava was not just a military triumph but a foundational myth for the Russian Empire. It was a moment of national rebirth, where Peter’s reforms, European-style army, and new imperial ambition were vindicated. The battlefield became a shrine to Russian unity and strength. Yet for Ukraine, the battle was a harbinger of subjugation. The defeat of Mazepa’s rebellion sealed the fate of the Cossack Hetmanate, dismantling its relative autonomy and beginning a long and painful process of Russification.

The Struggle for Bakhmut: War in the Twenty-First Century

Fast forward to the grim trenches and ruins of Bakhmut, a small but symbolically saturated city in the Donbas region. In 2022–2023, it became the focal point of some of the most intense fighting of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although not of high strategic value in the classical military sense, Bakhmut acquired immense political and psychological importance for both sides. For Russia, it was a stage to showcase Wagner mercenaries and to attempt a narrative of momentum. For Ukraine, it was a test of endurance and a symbol of national resistance.

The parallels to Poltava are uncanny. Once again, Russian forces fought bitterly to dominate Ukrainian territory that had chosen to resist their imperial reach. Once again, the battle took place on Ukrainian land that had historic memories of both autonomy and subjugation. And once again, the outcome shaped not just the military balance but also the historical mythologies surrounding Russia and Ukraine’s future.

Empire, Identity, and the Landscape of War

Ukraine has long been a contested borderland, a frontier between East and West, empire and liberty. The territory upon which both Poltava and Bakhmut sit has seen centuries of warfare — Mongol raids, Polish invasions, Cossack uprisings, Napoleonic campaigns, Bolshevik revolutions and Nazi occupation. Yet within this tumult, a coherent Ukrainian identity has emerged, one forged in resilience against foreign domination.

The Russian approach to Ukraine, from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, has always been rooted in a logic of negation — the idea that Ukraine is not truly a separate nation but a deviation from a greater Russian whole. Poltava validated this imperial vision in 1709; the modern siege of Bakhmut sought to reassert it in the twenty-first century.

But history refuses to repeat itself in perfect symmetry. The difference now is that Ukraine fights not as a divided Cossack host seeking foreign patrons, but as a sovereign, democratic nation backed by international allies. Mazepa’s tragic gamble has given way to President Zelensky’s determined defiance. The failure of Charles XII has been replaced by the steadfastness of NATO and EU support. Russia’s victory at Poltava was the beginning of a European century of Russian ascendancy; Bakhmut may instead mark the beginning of Russia’s imperial decline.

The Echo of Strategy and Sacrifice

Both Poltava and Bakhmut were characterised by immense human suffering. At Poltava, tens of thousands perished in a matter of hours. At Bakhmut, the death toll stretched across months of attritional warfare — soldiers reduced to shadows in rat-infested trenches, civilians hiding in basements under endless shelling, entire neighbourhoods levelled.

There is a strategic echo too. Poltava demonstrated the power of defence, the value of entrenchment, and the effectiveness of disciplined infantry against cavalry raids. Bakhmut reaffirmed those same principles in the drone age: defensive positions, high morale, and local knowledge can stalemate even an ostensibly superior attacker. Russia’s failure to break through in Bakhmut despite superior numbers recalls the overextension of Charles XII and the collapsing morale of his Swedish troops in the face of fierce resistance.

Memory and Myth in Ukrainian History

The war in Ukraine today is as much about memory as it is about missiles. Russia fights not merely to seize land but to rewrite history — to annul the very idea of Ukraine as a distinct people with a distinct past. That is why statues fall, language laws are changed, and textbooks rewritten. But Ukrainian resistance is equally historical. Mazepa’s betrayal of Peter the Great was once considered treason in Russian narratives. Today, he is a national hero in Ukraine, a symbol of an early, if failed, yearning for independence.

The fields of Poltava and the shattered streets of Bakhmut are memorials — to failure, sacrifice, perseverance, and the long journey towards liberation. Ukrainians carry these memories not with reverence alone, but as active elements of their modern nation-building. The road from Poltava to Bakhmut is not linear, but the destination is clear: full, irreversible independence.

History as Battlefield

If Russia’s war is one of restoration — of empire, of myth, of imagined unity — then Ukraine’s war is one of emancipation. The echoes of Poltava resound in the cries from Bakhmut’s ruins, but this time the roles are reversed. It is Russia that behaves like the desperate empire, clinging to lost grandeur. Ukraine, by contrast, has become the protagonist in her own story, a nation that has learned from her defeats and wears her scars with dignity.

Bakhmut is not Ukraine’s Poltava. It is not the end of a bid for sovereignty, but the bloody confirmation that the long journey from subjugation to freedom — begun in places like Poltava — will not be reversed. Where history once shackled Ukraine to the fate of others, she now defines her own path. The battles may echo, but the outcome need not be the same.