analysis
War in Ukraine
Invasion from the tube – Kiev loses the defensive belt at Avdiivka
Ukrainian artillery near Avdiivka
© Ozge Elif Kizil / Picture Alliance
Fighting for the fortress city of Avdiivka has been going on for months, and now Ukraine has suffered a bitter defeat. The Russians used an old pipeline to bypass the defenders. The beginning of the end?
In the past few days, the situation in the embattled city of Avdiivka has worsened further, and the Russians have made a surprising advance. For months there has been a bitter fight over the city, which from 2014 onwards Kiev was expanded into a fortress. The Russians have surrounded Avdiivka on three sides. They were able to interrupt the railway connection and take possession of a commanding height in the north of the city – it was the tailings dump of a huge coking plant. However, they were unable to close the last open passages into the city.
The fighting for the city is hard and full of casualties. The Russians lost huge amounts of armored vehicles in their attacks. The Ukrainian defenders suffer constantly from artillery and glide bombs. Both sides use FPV drones, the Russians are supposed to dominate here, but they were unable to sustainably disrupt the Ukrainian drones.
Advance in slow motion
Despite all the losses, the Russians have made small gains in recent weeks, but this has happened so slowly that the fall of the fortress city seemed a long way off. But now the invaders managed to push the front back by more than four kilometers. In the Second World War, four kilometers would not have been worth reporting, but in Ukraine’s tough ground war that is a huge distance, especially in such a heavily fortified area.
It’s about a zone to the south, located between the railway, the large H20 road and the actual city, which consists of forest and simple buildings. The resistance is based on extensive trench and bunker systems. In the plain to the west, the zone is protected by a strongpoint in an old military base.
Ukrainians taken by surprise
With a surprising blow, the Russians managed to undermine the entire positioning system. Their commandos discovered an abandoned pipeline and are said to have used this tunnel to resurface far behind the Ukrainians. This operation appears to have been planned for a long time. The attackers had to wait because there was initially water in the pipe. The narrow tube also had to be ventilated so that people wouldn’t suffocate in it. The necessary work was camouflaged with the noise of artillery fire. Of course, the Russian information cannot be independently verified, but it does offer a coherent explanation for the Ukrainian defeat.
The Russians are welding an exit from the pipe.
© Telegram
The Russian conquest will put the zones to the west and east still held by the Ukrainians in imminent danger, sooner rather than later. If they fall to the Russians, Kiev would have lost the entire area south of the actual city area. That doesn’t mean the end of the city – but it makes it more likely. What is happening now is the overture to a final battle that could drag on for weeks.
Abandonment or resistance until the end
The situation of the defenders has deteriorated further, even topographically. The Russian-owned southern zone is higher than the city, so the Ukrainians can be seen from the spoil heap in the north and the forest area in the south. In addition, it is generally bad for defenders to be crowded into an ever-smaller space, partly because this greatly favors the enemy’s artillery. After all, the areas with massive development in the city center and the huge coking plant are still held by Kiev. They are likely to be the pillars of the defense in the next few weeks.
Nobody can say how this battle will continue or even end. That depends on the decisions of the Ukrainian high command. It is not unthinkable that the city would be abandoned in order to save the majority of the surviving soldiers. Likewise, it seems possible Avdiivka – like Bakhmut – to want to hold until the last moment, as a breakwater and bone mill for the opponent. In Bakhmut, however, the last defenders managed to escape to their own ranks. In Avdiivka, with its location and orientation, the Ukrainians could be surrounded at a moment’s notice and escape would become impossible.