Russia and Ukraine's deadliest battle is starting to look like Stalingrad 'without the importance,' expert says

• Russia and Ukraine both say Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine, is the site of their deadliest fighting.
• The cost in lives on both sides appears disproportionate to the city's actual strategic value.
• An expert on Russia's military likened it to Stalingrad, but without the same level of significance.

What if Stalingrad hadn't been named after Josef Stalin?

If that city hadn't been identified with Adolf Hitler's archnemesis, then perhaps the führer wouldn't have been quite so obsessed with capturing it — or at least not so obsessed as to lose 300,000 soldiers and any chance Nazi Germany had of winning World War II.