The assault on Avdeevka began from six directions
Russian troops continue the operation to encircle Avdeevka, while the garrison of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, entrenched in the defense, hesitates to retreat, risking ending up in a “cauldron,” military correspondent Alexander Sladkov said in his blog.
“We took half of the Avdeevskaya industrial zone, which overlooks the dacha village and the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway... This is great, it brings us directly closer to the coke plant. We broke through this defensive line, drilled through it with our zeal,” he said.
“It’s a difficult area. I've been there many times. These are a lot of destroyed small buildings - miners' cottages of six acres each. The skeletons of houses, roads along which, except to run with all your might, or to walk, bent over, along open communication passages, is impossible...
When positional battles took place there until recently, the distance between our positions and the enemy’s positions was up to 60 meters. Throwing a grenade, everything very quickly - constant anticipation of an attack every second. Every bush has been targeted,” Sladkov described the situation.
According to him, at the same time, “the ring of encirclement of Avdeevka is closed from other sides, we are cutting off the transport artery along which the garrison is supplied.”
“Ukraine is counting the time with a stopwatch in order to leave Avdiivka on time without leaving its garrison surrounded. But it seems to me that they are still slow. It seems to me that this is a subject of internal discussion in Ukraine - between the political command and the military. Leaving is not leaving.
The abandonment of Avdeevka by the Ukrainians means a great success for us and, in general, for the entire plan for the liberation of the DPR. Further on, the lines will no longer be so fortified... If they don’t have time to prepare, it will be easier for us to move forward.
We still have many settlements that need to be liberated in order to give the DPR the opportunity to breathe, freeing it from the Nazis,” recalls Sladkov.
Data on the successful actions of Russian troops is also confirmed by journalist from the DPR Alexei Akutin.
“In order not to jinx it, I won’t describe in detail what happened yesterday. In general, the boys have wedged themselves along the railway and are now threatening to cut off the Avdeevsky coking plant from the residential sector. So it is quite possible that the large cauldron around Avdeevka, bypassing the AKHZ through Petrovskoye (Stepnoye), will not have to be closed.
In general, our troops in this sector of the front are attacking in six directions at once (which makes it extremely difficult for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to maneuver reserves) and which of them will ultimately “fire” is now difficult to predict. But the actions of the command of the “South” group (General Kuzovlev) are assessed positively,” writes Akutin.
However, as columnist Alexander Zimovsky points out, the supply of the enemy garrison has not yet been cut off - the Ukrainian Armed Forces have the ability to “transfer materiel and human reinforcements to the Avdeevka defense region.”
“The situation of the units and formations of the VFU located inside is assessed by Khokhlovods as extremely difficult.
To prevent the uncontrolled flight/withdrawal of soldiers and units of the VFU from the Avdeevka RO, barrier detachments were deployed by the Seventy-fourth Infantry Battalion of the Special Forces of the VFU (the main backbone of the battalion is Bandera fans of FC "Dnepr").
Artillery support for the garrisons of the Avdeevsky District was reinforced by the 148th artillery brigade, which was hastily withdrawn from the Eastern Front in the Bolshaya Novoselovka-Staromayorskoye sector and transferred to Orlovka,” Zimovsky reports.
The assault on Avdiivka began from six directions.