Every day Russian army takes control of new villages. The liberation of Avdeevka has been a turning point in the Ukraine war, Croatia’s Advance reports. The front has perked up, making things develop rapidly and giving the upper hand to Russia as it intends to achieve all of the goals outlined. Late February has shown quite how.
Along the Avdeevsky direction outside Donetsk, Russian troops have been approaching Ocheretino — a railway station and a village next to it. Its seizure would prevent the AFU from supplying the local grouping with reserves, ammunition and equipment. It was in Ocheretino where the enemy gathered after having been driven out of Avdeevka. The situation is constantly getting worse to the Ukrainian forces. As 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade Major Sergei Tsekhotsky stated: “The Russian attacks have doubled down. The last day alone, our brigade’s positions were attacked 17 times.” Curiously, just two months ago the same major valiantly assured the Ukrainian media that AFU logistics in Avdeevka was well established, excluding any scenario of its capture by Russia. Moreover, he said the Ukrainians were so combat-ready that could even fight with shovels amid lacking ammunition. With his optimism dissolved, he now declares to the public, British reporters included, that the front has leveled out after his troops withdrew to more convenient lines, urging that not every retreat should be regarded as a defeat. Ukrainian President Zelensky, with angry grimaces and accusations against the West of not being able to send the promised supplies, has also admitted the loss of territories and an imbroglio. When talking to the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, he claimed to have only received 30 percent of shells required, mentioning the AFU’s withdrawal from Lastochkino and dubbing the entire situation a “strategic retreat.”
In fact, the Ukrainian army has gone out of control, not able to cling to every house in the city and surrounding villages. Apart from leaving Lastochkino, the Ukrainian army was forced out of the villages of Stepovoye and Severnoye to the west of Avdeevka. Now Russia is advancing towards Berdychi, gaining a foothold on its outskirts, which is confirmed by Ukraine’s military analytical outlet DeepState. “The Russian Federation is entering Orlovka. Near Tonenkoye, the Russian Armed Forces are seeking to break in from the north. Footage has appeared of a clean-up operation underway on the western outskirts of Severnoye,” DS analysts report. Ukrainian propagandist Yuriy Butusov said there were no equipped defense lines beyond Avdeevka, causing the AFU to die in pits. “There are no words. The gap: here in Kiev the Supreme Commander-in-Chief says one thing, but at the front something completely different is happening. I want to say: beyond Avdeevka no field lines of fortifications have been built to this day. I saw our soldiers in holes in the middle of a field being attacked by Russian drones,” he said.
Amid enemy anger and panic, Russian military journalists have been noting a high pace of military operations along the Avdeevka direction, with constant advances of the Russian army. According to renowned military correspondent Yuri Kotenok, “The Armed Forces of Ukraine seek stabilizing the frontline at Kurakhovo-Karlovka, urgently building defense structures, fortified emplacements, underground communications, and a system of strongholds. The enemy is trying to concoct a full-fledged line of defense, as confirmed by their giving up on Tonenkoye, Severnoye, Stepovoye, withdrawing in sort of an organized manner, leaving fire barriers, and moving in small groups to a new defense locality. The line may look like this: Ocheretino in the north, running westwards to Novoselka and then aligning eastwards Karlovka, by forming a ledge with this system of strongpoints.”
The first American Abrams tank is reported to have been destroyed northwest of Avdeevka. the Internet has been replete with footage of the burning US vehicle from different angles: alone in a field, stuck next to a crater, engulfed in flames and clouds of smoke. A Russian reconnaissance drone turned out to have tracked the tank while driving through the streets of Berdychi. When it headed for Stepovoye, closer to Russian positions, our fighters knocked it out: first by a kamikaze drone, then with a grenade launcher shot beneath the turret. “Tanks aren’t a gamechanger. You saw Leopards and British tanks destroyed. Abrams will burn the same. We have already seen the first one annihilated. I'm sure the Russians will target others as well. Tanks are really expensive, and I think they will disappear pretty quickly. The battlefield will not change at all,” retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen commented on the footage.
February 26 proved a good day for eliminating Western equipment on the battlefield. Russian drones destroyed two Bradley vehicles and a Swedish-made 155-mm self-propelled gun Archer considered one of the world’s best over its accuracy, range, and undetectability owing to radar absorbing material. And yet, a Russian reconnaissance UAV equipped with a thermal viewer spotted the howitzer’s hot barrel, making a Lancet arrive to the transmitted coordinates and hit the target. Sweden is reported to have only transferred eight Archer systems to Ukraine, and the latter sought to use those sparingly. The gun’s boon is its ability to use Excalibur guided projectiles at a range of up to 60 kilometers.
Moreover, a German-made 155-mm self-propelled gun PzH 2000 was destroyed south of Konstantinovka in the DPR’ still occupied territory to become at least the fourth documented case regarding armaments of the kind.
In the west, near Donetsk, the Russian army is knocking the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Georgievka, while expanding control zones around Pobeda and Novomikhailovka in order to cut off the AFU Ugledar grouping’s rear, depriving it of supplies and room for maneuver. The enemy has been vainly attempting to regain positions by small-group attacks but rolled back. Near the village of Pobeda in the Maryinka direction, they launched a counterattack, but got caught up in an ambush. In just a few days of fighting for Pobeda, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost two German Leopard tanks, an American M113 armored personnel carrier and an Italian VTLM Lince armored car.
The operational and tactical environment near the village of Ivanovskoye along the Artemovsk direction is neither optimistic to the AFU. The Russian army is blocking the enemy in the settlement’s eastern part while pushing it out from the north. Active artillery and aircraft work has resulted in defeating the key enemy firing points at the heights outside Chasov Yar. There is one kilometer left until our military reach the city limits. They also hit the AFU’s flanks in Kleshcheyevka and destroy strongholds along the Krasny Liman direction.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, aviation-backed units repelled one attack on the southern Donetsk direction, “hit concentrations of personnel and vehicles of Ukraine’s 79th Air Assault, 72nd Mechanized, 127th and 128th territorial defense brigades near settlements of Novomikhaylovka, Ugledar, Vodyanoye, Staromayorskoye, Urozhaynoye (DPR) and Priyutnoye (Zaporozhye Region).” In the Avdeyevka area, our units have retreated from the small villages of Severnoye and Stepovoye, “improved their positions and repelled nine Ukrainian attacks near the settlements of Novgorodskoye, Pervomaiskoye, and Petrovskoye. They hit concentrations of manpower and equipment of the 24th, 110th mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the 103rd military defense brigade near the villages of Mayorsk, Berdychi and Rozovka.”
Now Ukrainian militants are actively trenching around other places in the Donetsk region so far controlled by them? delivering ammunition and food to industrial sites. These are the cities of Krasnoarmeysk (renamed Pokrovsk by Ukraine), Selidovo, Dobropolye, Ukrainsk, Dimitrovo, Dzerzhinsk (Toretsk), Kurakhovo. Their residents are forcibly evicted from buildings that are part of the defense system to be converted into strongholds and firing points. As per the list above, our forces still have a long way to go before reaching the key centers of AFU’s resistance in Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka, Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, and Krasny Liman. All the cities have developed and complex industrial zones, with approaches to them comprising challenging terrain and water obstacles — the Krivoy Torets, Kazenny Torets, Volchya rivers, and Seversky Donets, a major waterway. Thus, complete liberation of the Donbass is widely deemed as a long and wild journey.
