The Ukrainian General Staff reported 15 enemy attacks on Avdivka in the past 24 hours, but said the Russians still had much to do to seal off the miles-long corridor that brings reinforcements and supplies to the city’s defenders.
The battle for control of the industrial areas north and south of the city, home to a coking plant and a quarry respectively, is fierce.
According to the Ukrainian press, six heavily equipped Russian motorized brigades, supported by aviation and heavy artillery, have been participating in this offensive for three weeks.
“The enemy’s objectives are very primitive. Putin (the Russian president) needs a positive outcome because they have inflated the situation on the front for a long time,” Michailo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, said on television today. channel.
“They use frontal attacks. They even try to minimize the loss of military equipment, as everything counts as long as there are human lives…” Podoliak said.
Although Russian war reports do not mention the progress of the offensive on Avdivka, Kiev also reported about twenty attacks on Marinka, the other strategic city south of Donetsk city.
According to the Ukrainian army, its forces destroyed a column of Russian armored troops heading towards Krasnogorovka, not far from Marinka.
Today, Ukraine officially entered winter time, synonymous with low temperatures, impassable roads and logistical problems for both sides, meaning time is running against the offensives of both the Ukrainians and the Russians.
The loss of Avdivka, located a short distance from Donetsk airport, would be far more significant than the defeat at Bakhmut, the city captured in May by Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group.
This is why two Ukrainian motorized brigades fighting in Zaporijia were mobilized to prevent its fall.
Experts warn that a defeat in this battle would block Ukrainian forces in the south and reverse territorial gains in the north.
Although the media does not mention it and President Volodymyr Zelensky demands continued progress in his speeches, the reality on the ground seems to confirm that the counter-offensive in the south has slowed and even frozen in recent weeks, with only eight attacks in the last 24 years . hours in more than a thousand kilometers of front, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
For Russia, the current offensive is also vital, as the current production rate of its military industry will not allow the country to launch a new large-scale offensive before 2025, according to analysts.
More than two months after the death of the head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian press reported the return to the battlefield of the mercenaries, with a unit of the special battalion Arbat, fighting in Avdivka, consisting exclusively of members from the group.
Ukrainian sources also confirmed the presence of these mercenaries in Donetsk, who had agreed to sign contracts with the Russian Defense.
Source: DN
