Per Volodymyr Zelensky the city of Avdiivka it had already been lost for days. The Russian army had now surrounded it, so the president, unlike what was done for example during the battle of Bakhmutasked the military leadership to save the lives of soldiers. Even the brigadier general Oleksandr Tarnavsky he declared that he had “maintained this position as long as it allowed us to effectively deter and destroy the enemy”, but now the time had come to leave the position to “preserve the military and improve the operational situation”. Thus the Ukrainian soldiers abandoned this town of 32 thousand inhabitants, which has become the most important conquest (or loss) of recent months in an increasingly static war between Russia e Ukraine.
Until 2021 Avdiivka had been a small town with the territory largely occupied by agricultural areas, industrial installations and piles of soil and minerals extracted from the soil. It was not crossed by any road or railway axis of strategic importance. Worthy of note is the fact that the distance between this “village” and the first houses of Donetskthe capital of the region occupied by the Russians, is less than 10 kilometers: such a small margin, however, does not make a difference with the drones not artillery in use by both parties.
From the military point of view, Avdiivka had become what is called a “outgoing“, that is, a part of the battle theater that projects into enemy territory and is surrounded on two or three sides. This causes the troops that occupy it to be particularly vulnerable: A deep salient runs the risk of being cut by the enemy, forming a pocket in which the troops become stuck. The Avdiivka salient in Ukrainian hands had a depth of about 9 kilometers and a width that varied between 2 and 3. The part of the Donetsk oblast still under the control of Kiev it extends beyond Avdiivka to a depth that varies between 50 and 70 kilometers: an infinite distance after a year of advances of a few meters or tens of meters per day. There was only one communication route that allowed Zelensky’s soldiers to leave the fortified areas without abandoning their weapons and vehicles. The time had come to exploit it so as not to end up sucked into the Russians.
In short, the atlas offers an image that – without being an expert in military matters – can be understood well: the battles that have taken place here without interruption over the last ten years between the troops loyal to Moscow and the Ukrainian ones and which they almost took to the grave 50 thousand people, between civilians and fighters on both sides, involved a small plot of land. Yet, both the Kremlin be it White House both President Zelensky went out of their way to attribute this clash to a symbolic value which transcends what the small center has from a strategic point of view. The fighting took place only for non-military reasons. The Ukrainian side did not want to concede to its opponent political advantages, took advantage of this to bleed him to death and to demonstrate to the world that without Western supplies Kiev’s forces have no chance of going on the offensive. The Russian side, after Bakhmut had been conquered by a company of mercenaries from the Wagnerthen the protagonist of an attempted coup d’état, needed to announce the first conquest of a territory, a “glory” that has been missing since the times of Severodonetsk e Lysichansk way back in June 2022.
It matters little if the battle left mountains of corpses in the fields and only shreds of walls where the houses and churches once stood. But it’s not over yet. The Ukrainians were inside the salient one battalion and three mechanized brigadesa regiment of special police forces e two infantry battalions: above all, it was the 110th mechanized brigade that got busy, but it couldn’t take it anymore. Outside there were some assault battalions, other mechanized brigades, the special forces of military intelligence and Russian volunteers part of the Kiev forces: all these troops can be used, at most, in preparing an attack operation of counterattack.
The doubt whether to keep the razed town at all costs was therefore of a political and not military nature. As already happened after the battle of Severodonetsk, here too Russia does not seem to have much chance of going further: MoscaIn fact, it does not have a sufficient quantity of modern tanks to attempt an offensive to reach the administrative borders of the oblast and realistically it will not have any for a few years yet. More and more often on the battlefields the Russians use vehicles built in the seventies, sixties and even fifties, effectively lacking production. In short, Avdiivka has fallen, at least in this region the two sides could adopt a “Korean solution†, limiting themselves to looking at each other with drones and throwing bullets at each other from a distance.
Kiev has therefore done the math in its pocket: in the recent interview with ZDF Syrsky himself explained that Ukrainian forces will adopt a defensive disposition with the aim “of exhausting enemy forces and inflicting maximum losses, using our fortifications, technical advantages, drones, electronic warfare and maintaining prepared defense lines”. He also stressed that Russian pressure in the north is on Kupansk it has strategic value, concerning the control of a logistically important axis: well, all this did not apply to Avdiivka. The doubt remains as to how the loss of a “village” will impact on theWestern public opinion: depending on the country, the idea will pass that not enough has been done and that we need to invest more or that the stalemate is insurmountable and investing is of no use.