Russia’s new offensive zeroes in on eastern Ukrainian city

While much of the world’s gaze turned to the conflict in the Middle East, Russia launched a new ground offensive in Ukraine, seeking to gain momentum in a war that has devolved into a gruelling fight of attrition.

For more than two weeks, Russian forces have zeroed in on the eastern industrial city of Avdiivka, using so-called human waves, airdropped bombs and heavy artillery to try to overwhelm Ukrainian forces and encircle them. If successful, this offensive would mark a rare battlefield victory for Russia this year.

US and Ukrainian officials estimate that Russia has deployed at least three battalions with thousands of soldiers in the fight for Avdiivka, which started on October 9 and comes at a crucial moment as both sides seek to seize the initiative before winter sets in and temperatures plunge below freezing.

The Russian offensive threatens to draw Ukrainian attention and resources away from its counteroffensive in the south, where Kyiv still hopes for a breakthrough after months of limited success against Russia’s heavily fortified defences.

Ukrainian officials and military analysts say the offensive, which is Russia’s largest since February, has come at huge cost, with Russian forces suffering huge losses in manpower and weaponry for the small gains they were able to make.

According to Ukraine’s military, some 5,000 Russian soldiers have died or were injured around Avdiivka in the past two weeks, with more than 1,000 staff, 55 tanks and 120 armoured fighting vehicles lost on October 19 alone. 

Those figures could not be independently verified by the Financial Times.

But Ukrainian armed forces posted several videos showing the destruction on the Russian side, including footage of Ukrainian suicide drones and artillery hitting infantry soldiers and destroying dozens of tanks and other weaponry.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday that Russia suffered “thousands of casualties in their effort to conduct this offensive” as it throws swarms of untrained soldiers into the fight.

“We have information that the Russian military has been actually executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders . . . [or] seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire,” Kirby said.

As was the case during Moscow’s previous winter offensive, Kirby added, Russian forces appear to again be employing “human wave tactics”, when troops storm head-on in repeated surges trying to overrun frontline positions.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told UK prime minister Rishi Sunak during a call on Friday that Russia had lost “at least a brigade” trying to besiege and capture Avdiivka.

“Our soldiers stopped them and pushed them back, causing painful losses,” Zelenskyy said. He added that he expected the attacks to continue and that “Russia will continue to try to occupy the entire Donbas”, referring to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. 

General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces and architect of last year’s successful counteroffensive, described the current conditions along the 600-mile frontline as “difficult” and “challenging”. His troops were also facing Russian attacks around Bakhmut, the city captured by Wagner troops in May after 10 months of relentless fighting, he told Ukrainian media.

Kirby noted that Russian forces had also stepped up attacks in the northeastern towns of Lyman and Kupiansk, both of which had fallen under Russian control in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion before being retaken by Ukraine’s troops last autumn. In recent weeks, Russian artillery has pounded both towns, further reducing them to rubble.

Avdiivka had a prewar population of 30,000 people, including some 2,000 employees who worked at the city’s hulking coke factory. The factory is now closed and its employees evacuated. The city has been in Russia’s crosshairs since the war in eastern Ukraine first broke out in 2014. Several civilians were killed by Russian artillery barrages in 2017, but Ukrainian forces did not cede any ground.

Dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” as it sits just five miles north-west of the regional capital which was captured by Russia in 2014, Avdiivka has been crucial to Ukraine’s efforts to keep pressure on Russia’s supply lines in the area.

Positioned in a tight crescent around Avdiivka, Russian forces first attacked from the north-west near the village of Krasnohorivka and south-west near the villages of Sieverne and Opytne.

“Russian gains have been modest over the past two weeks and with high costs, but the problem is that Russia controls the flanks of the city,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Particularly worrying is the fact that the Russians have managed to narrow the gap allowing Ukrainian troops to enter and leave the city to just seven kilometres.

“Even further advances of one to two kilometres from the flanks could make it more difficult to resupply the city,” Lee said.

A Ukrainian reserve officer who operates the analytical group Frontelligence Insight said that Russian forces have been using airdropped bombs to severely damage Avdiivka, including its civilian infrastructure.

Konrad Muzyka, director of Rochan Consulting, a Poland-based group that tracks the war, said Russia’s overall objective in Avdiivka was to gain access to the M-04 highway and restore train traffic on the Yasinovata-Donetsk railway line that was severed in 2014. That could allow Russia another supply route for its forces further south.

“Without a properly functioning logistic system, the Russian ability to sustain its forces in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia [regions] may face some hurdles during the upcoming winter,” Muzyka added.

Some observers and analysts fear the situation in Avdiivka could turn into another Bakhmut — a gruelling, months-long battle that turned the city into a hellscape.

Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s top military brass justified the decision to defend Bakhmut to the bitter end by arguing that they managed to also force Russia to use up crucial munitions and tie up its best units, keeping them from launching offensives elsewhere.

With Ukraine putting up a strong defence of Avdiivka, Russia will almost certainly need to pour in even more resources.

Kirby said the US expected more Russian assaults. “This is a dynamic conflict and we need to remember that Russia still maintains some offensive capability and may be able to achieve some tactical gains in the coming months.”