Ukrainians Repel "Misguided" Suicidal Russian Attacks On Avdiivka

With their assault on Bakhmut stalled, Russian forces are attempting to pull Ukrainian troops away by opening attacks on Avdiivka. The Russian assaults appear to be a reprise of the suicidal Bakhmut attacks are deemed unlikely to succeed tactically or strategically. JL

Marc Santora reports in the New York Times, image Evgeniy Maloletka:

Russian forces have stepped up their assaults on the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, making limited and costly gains in a furious attempt to encircle the long-battered city. Avdiivka is turning into another Bakhmut by sending waves of lightly trained recruits on near-suicidal attacks of Ukrainian defensive lines. The Institute for the Study of War said that the Russian assault in the Avdiivka area “has led to major losses and is likely a misguided effort to pull Ukrainian forces away from other areas of the front.”

Russian forces have stepped up their assaults on the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, making limited and costly gains in a furious attempt to encircle the long-battered city.

Ukrainian officials have said in recent days that Avdiivka is turning into another Bakhmut, the eastern city that Russian forces have sought to capture by sending waves of lightly trained recruits on near-suicidal attacks of Ukrainian defensive lines. In Avdiivka, as in Bakhmut, Ukraine says that Russian advances are also threatening key supply lines while bombardments are killing civilians.

Local officials said on Tuesday that a woman had been killed and two more civilians injured when a shell fired from a tank blasted the city center.

“Russians are intensively attacking from both sides, from the south and the north,” Maj. Maksym Morozov, a member of the Special Forces regiment fighting in the area, told the Ukrainian news media on Monday night. He added that the Russian tactic of using waves of soldiers — dubbed “cannon fodder” by the Ukrainians — was having some success.

“First, cannon fodder goes to expose our firing positions, and then professionals behind them quickly and accurately try to extinguish our firing lines,” he said. But he said that Ukrainian artillery and tanks were firing back at the Russian forces, who “have to pay a rather high price for this advance.”

Avdiivka is about 15 miles west of the city of Donetsk, which Russian proxy forces took over in 2014. But Avdiivka had not experienced violence on the scale unleashed in Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

By last April, Russian artillery had destroyed more than 800 homes and scores of businesses, according to local officials. Only about 2,300 of the city’s 30,000 prewar residents remain, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in the city.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, has said that the Russian assault in the Avdiivka area “has reportedly led to major losses and is likely a misguided effort to pull Ukrainian forces away from other areas of the front.”