Major assault in Donetsk launched on Tuesday said to have resulted in serious losses for Moscow’s forces
A top Ukrainian commander has claimed that Russia’s biggest offensive in months – involving tanks, thousands of soldiers and armoured vehicles in an attack on the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka – is failing, as he admitted Kyiv’s own attempts to advance in the south were proving “difficult”.
Russian forces have pummelled the town over the past week, a key bulge surrounded by Russian-held territory on the eastern Donbas front.
It is one of the largest assaults by Moscow since last year’s full-scale invasion and comes at a time when Ukraine’s counteroffensive is moving slowly, and the world is focused on the imminent Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.
Russian forces have pummelled the town over the past week, a key bulge surrounded by Russian-held territory on the eastern Donbas front.
Col Dmytro Lysyuk – the commander of Ukraine’s 128th separate mountain assault brigade – said he believed there was zero possibility the Russian army would break through.
He said that sending a lengthy military column into battle – a tactic used when Russian forces tried to seize Kyiv last year, and the eastern town of Vuhledar in February – would not work.
They included numerous minefields laid by Russia over the past 18 months; an extensive defensive trench network, dug in three lines; and kamikaze and first person view (FPV) drones.
Pentagon officials have criticised Ukraine’s battlefield strategy and suggested that a large concentration of forces at a single point could achieve quicker results.
“A return to ‘offensive’ tactics after almost a year of defence is not easy for the troops,” they said, adding that Ukraine’s forces would seek to regain lost positions.
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Russia has accomplished its tactical goal of taking important local high point and applying pressure on the city itself.
The location is heavily reinforced with concrete after 7 years or so of fortification. But Russians have taken the place.
This article is just an attempt at damage control by claiming goals Russians did not set yet.
Russia doesn’t have to take the city. Supply lines are targetable by artillery. It is a perfect setup to bleed Ukrainian side if they want to keep the city.
Ukraine is set to loose either way: if they want to keep the city, they will loose lots of people. If they abandon, it’s a black eye.
Given what Zelensky did last winter, he will keep the city and send lots of people into meat grinder half of which will die trying to reach the city.
Also it's spelled "lose." If they "loose" a lot of people it means they send a lot of people into the city, which likely translates into even more untrained Russian conscripts being unceremoniously woodchippered.
Unceremonious because, of course, the Russian government can't even bother returning dead soldiers to their families let alone properly memorialize their cannon fodder.
Russian troops have initiated a sustained offensive, effectively "encircling" the Ukrainian armed forces, as reported by The Economist.
After months of a slow Ukrainian counter-offensive, Russian troops commenced their own counter-offensive on October 9th, with a focus on the Avdeevka region. According to the influential British publication, this marks one of Russia's most significant offensives since the previous spring. Its objective is to trap the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a dire situation, and whether or not Avdeevka becomes part of the Russian Federation will have adverse repercussions for Ukrainians.
In the event that Ukraine needs to fortify the Avdeevka front, it will necessitate relocating some of the forces currently engaged in the south of Orekhovo. This, in turn, will further diminish the prospects of achieving a breakthrough.