2023-11-23 18:23:24
After the failure of the armored assaults, the Russian army is now sending its men “in waves” to try to surround Avdiïvka, with massive losses, as in Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian soldiers defending this eastern city.
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Populated by some 30,000 inhabitants before the war, Avdiïvka is today largely destroyed and barely 1,500 people live there despite the incessant fighting and bombings around it.
For nine years, Ukrainian forces have been entrenched behind solid fortifications, particularly in the south, the last suburbs of which are only 5 km from those of Donetsk, the capital under Russian control of the eponymous region.
The city marks the front line in this area and symbolizes Ukrainian resistance.
However, at the beginning of October, Moscow’s forces launched a major offensive aimed at encircling and then conquering the city.
“Columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers advanced, but they jumped into minefields, were hit by Ukrainian drones and anti-tank missiles,” says “Trauma” – its military code -, 29 years old, drone operator in the 47th brigade.
After the October assaults, kyiv’s forces had to give up some ground, but their defenses held.
Since then, the Russians “switched to infantry tactics, they began to advance exclusively at the expense of human force”, especially northeast of Avdiivka, explains the battalion deputy.
«Zombies»
The Ukrainian general staff indicated Thursday morning that in 24 hours, the defenders of the “Avdiïvka axis” had repelled “thirty attacks”.
The Russian infantry “moves in groups of 5 to 7 fighters, sometimes more”, at night, until their last position, “then early in the morning, they launch attacks”, explains the drone operator.
“Our artillery hits them, a little closer they are mortars, even closer other types of weapons”, such as small explosive drones or grenade launchers, or even American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, very mobile and equipped with a 25 mm cannon, he adds.
“Some die, others continue to move forward. It’s like in zombie films,” continues the young man, adding that it looks “a lot like Bakhmout.”
The town of Bakhmout, 50 km further north, was taken by the Russians in May after months of bloody fighting.
Waves of fighters, often recruited from prisons with the promise of a pardon if they survived, threw themselves at the Ukrainian lines. And those who fell under the bullets were immediately replaced by others.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late leader of the Wagner paramilitary group that was responsible for the offensive, called Bakhmout a “meat grinder.”
In Avdiïvka it is therefore again, according to Ukrainian soldiers. The Russians “see many corpses (of comrades), but do not give up,” according to Oleksandr.
To the north-east of the city, Moscow soldiers approached the largest coking plant in Ukraine, which covers 340 hectares, and the village of Stepové which is located 2 km from Berdytchi, through which the last access road to Avdiïvka.
“This road is vital. If they cut it, it will complicate entries, evacuations, supplies… But that doesn’t mean they will stop there. Once again, they are looking for an opportunity to take the city,” said the deputy battalion commander.
The Russians occupy the eastern flank and the south of Avdiïvka. Between the two, the Ukrainians hold a strip about eight kilometers wide, from the city to the northwest.
“We can say that Avdiivka is half-surrounded,” continues the officer, while assuring that the Ukrainian forces deployed were sufficient to “maintain the defense” of the city.
“There is no reason to withdraw the troops and cede the city,” he insists.
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