As of: January 30, 2024, 11:55 a.m
By: Stephanie Munk, Michael Kister
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Attack via the sewer system: A Russian commando is said to have gotten behind Ukrainian lines through a sewer pipe during the siege of Avdiivka.
Update from January 30th, 11:15 a.m.:
Ukraine has now also confirmed the Russian army's surprise attack in the Ukraine war through a two-kilometer-long pipe near Avdiivka.
Accordingly, the Russian soldiers managed to break through a disused sewer pipe in the sewer system.
The Russians had to “swim more than a kilometer in the manure pipe” and “not suffocate,” said
the Ukrainian military unit Khorne Group on drone footage on Telegram, according to
Bild .
In this way, Russian soldiers made their way underground to a small suburb of the city of Avdiivka, which has been fought over for months and “which the Russians now want to conquer.”
The Russian units dug through the disused sewage pipe for weeks.
As a result, after three months of unsuccessful fighting, Russia succeeded in bringing the first residential area of the Ukrainian city in Donbass under complete control.
A Ukrainian police officer takes cover in front of a burning building in the city of Avdiivka.
(Archive) © Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
First report: Battle for Avdiivka – Russian command advances through pipeline
Avdiivka - 150 members of a Russian volunteer unit, the “Veterans” assault brigade, are said to have penetrated into the rear of Ukrainian defensive positions in the south of Avdiivka through a two-kilometer-long pipe.
This is reported by the Russian state newspaper
Rossiyskaya Gazeta,
citing the Telegram channel of military blogger Kirill Fedorov.
However, this information cannot be independently verified.
Fedorov posted a video on his channel that purportedly shows the Russian fighters using a welding machine to cut exits into the old pipeline.
The operation was prepared for a long time, Federov claims.
According to the blogger, a first attempt was even aborted: there was too little oxygen in the tunnel, so ventilation shafts had to be created first.
Then, possibly through the new ventilation shafts, the pipe was flooded by rain.
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This screenshot comes from a video that a Russian war blogger posted on his Telegram channel.
It is supposed to show Russian soldiers in the pipe under Avdiivka.
© Telegram
Ukraine War: With the underground attack, the pocket around Avdiivka is slowly closing
At the next attempt, the Russian soldiers were successful and surprised the Ukrainian unit in the former recreation complex at Zarskaya Okhota.
They managed to capture areas in the southwest of Avdiivka.
Thanks to the attack, the Russians probably gained four kilometers of terrain, during which extensive trench and bunker systems were overrun.
This means that the pocket around Avdiivka is increasingly closing.
Mark Cancian, a retired US Navy colonel, told
Business Insider
that Russia is pursuing the same goal here as it once did at Bakhmut: to attack the enemy from three sides.
Only in the northwest are the Ukrainians left with open space through which they can bring in supplies and evacuate the wounded.
Tunnel fighting: A new tactic for the Russians in the Ukraine war?
Avdiivka has been on the front line since 2014, as it is only about 15 kilometers from Donetsk as the crow flies.
Since October 2023, after the end of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia has intensified attacks on the city again.
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's army throws brigade after brigade into battle and suffers heavy losses: in November, according to the British Ministry of Defense, there were an average of more than 900 per day.
There were probably a similar number in December.
According to Forbes,
Russia has lost
143 tanks and 228 armored fighting vehicles at Avdiivka alone.
If it really happened, the tunnel advance was probably not the first underground operation in the Ukraine war.
The Russian news site
Pravda
reported in November that Russian troops had also allegedly detonated a 500-kilogram explosive device in a tunnel near Avdiivka.
The Russian state newspaper
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
wrote that Putin's forces themselves had dug this tunnel under the Ukrainian positions.