The battle of Avdiivka continues.
No in the city itself, taken on February 17 by Russian forces, after months of fierce fighting in this Ukrainian fortress located only ten kilometers from Donetsk, the capital of the oblast of the same name and stronghold of the separatists. since 2014. For ten days, it is towards the west of Avdiivka that the battle has continued: the Ukrainians have not yet managed to stabilize the front and form a new line of defense strong enough to stop the Russian offensive , certainly slow, but which has not yet reached its peak in this region of Donbass.
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In recent days, the Russians have succeeded in seizing the three villages of Sjeverne, Lastochkyne and Stepove.
They form a first line five kilometers from Avdiivka.
Fighting is currently raging along a second line, made up of four other villages - Tonenke, Orlivka, Semenivka, Berdychi - five kilometers further to the West.
Difficult to say where exactly the front passes, inevitably marked by a gray zone.
“The Russian armed forces are advancing with confidence in several directions”
of the front, assured Russian President Vladimir Putin this Thursday during his traditional speech to the Nation, without saying more.
For his part, the new commander of the Ukrainian army, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, announced this Thursday on Telegram that the Russian assault on Orlivka had been repelled.
In recent days, kyiv has acknowledged the withdrawal of its troops from two villages near Avdiivka - most likely Sjeverne and Stepove.
Since the capture of Avdiivka, the Russians have managed to capture approximately 40 additional square kilometers, according to the DeepStateMap, one of the benchmarks for OSINT (open source intelligence). ).
This is obviously very modest compared to the part of the territory of Ukraine controlled by Russia (around 108,000 kilometers), but this progress is not without consequences either.
Risk of a new salient
The erosion of the ground by Russian forces reveals that the Ukrainians have not yet succeeded in stabilizing the front by erecting new fortifications to stop the enemy's advance.
Instead, they are forced to withdraw little by little, using braking maneuvers.
In the short or medium term, the risk is that the Russians will manage to establish a new salient - like that of Popasna in 2022 which allowed the Russians to launch the battles of Severodonetsk, Lisichansk then finally Bakhmut.
The Russians could in particular target the town of Pokrovsk, fifty kilometers northwest of Avdiivka, a logistical hub at the crossroads of two essential routes for supplying Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk oblast.
There is no indication that the Russians will succeed - they are less than a fifth of the way there - but the difficulty for the Ukrainians is that between Avdiivka and Prokovsk there is no town large enough to allow them to to erect an urban fortress against the Russians.
And apart from a few modest reliefs and meager wet cuts, the terrain is hopelessly flat for kilometers.
The evolution of the Russian offensive west of Avdiivka must therefore be closely monitored in the coming days.
General Syrskiy, who visited the front line in the east of the country, acknowledged that some commanders had reported gaps in their
"situational awareness and assessment of the enemy
. "
“I have taken all measures to remedy the situation on the ground, by allocating additional ammunition and material resources, as well as the necessary reserves
,” Syrskyi explained, wanting to be reassuring.
Defense line
His words, however, implicitly underline the worrying difficulties about which the Ukrainian command has been warning the political authorities for several months: the Ukrainian army lacks as many men as it does materials and ammunition in the face of the Russian forces which have taken over from the beginning of winter initiative all along the front line.
Ukraine would need to mobilize half a million troops to replenish the front and allow for rotations, with many soldiers having been deployed in combat for two years.
As for weapons, Western deliveries have dried up since the summer due to European delays and the political blockage in the United States.
Avdiivka is not the only sector of the front where the Russians are seriously pressing the Ukrainian system.
In the Zaporizhia region, they are trying to regain the Ukrainian Robotyne salient, a meager gain made by the Ukrainians during their failed summer counter-offensive.
The Russians have already been demanding the entry of their forces into this small village reduced to ruins for several days.
Its loss would be seriously symbolic for kyiv.
South of Avdiivka, the Russians are also gaining ground near Mariinka, where they have captured the town of Pobieda.
This push risks threatening from the North another Ukrainian fortress, Voulhedar, which the Russians have tried without success and at the cost of heavy losses to seize from the South in recent months.
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North of Avdiivka, this time, the Russians pushed, without breaking through, to the west of Bakhmout, where they directly threatened the locality of Ivanivske, approaching the small town of Chasiv Yar, beyond a canal which serves as a natural border for the Ukrainians to protect Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities in Donbass still controlled by kyiv.
It is therefore urgent for the Ukrainians to build the equivalent of the Russian “Sourovikin” line, these hundreds of kilometers of fortifications built several tens of kilometers deep in the Zaporizhia region against which the Ukrainians encountered the last summer.