"A collection of old men, criminals, and disheartened conscripts begging to go home."

Nobody said anything like that. If anything, reddit news showed that russian soldiers will keep going to the slaughter no matter what and their human qualities are dubious at best.

And just because they are incompetent doesn't mean that they can't just throw human waves at ukranians over and over again - which is exactly what they are doing. But taking a small city (it used to have population of 40k-70k) after a YEAR of fighting and countless casualties is not a gigantic russian victory. Its only a single line of defence, and Ukraine has hundreds more, and soon western tanks will arrive. Russia taking Bakhmut is not a sign that they are "winning". Russia took Severodonetsk just a few months before Ukraine did a brilliant counter-offensive and liberated entire Kharkiv oblast and Kherson. Everyone, who is not a coping russian supporter, said ages ago, that Bakhmut no longer holds strategic value, that would be worth all these resources Russia is throwing at it.

Bakhmut served its role as a place, where ukranians could kill A LOT of russian soldiers, and now they can retreat from those ruins.