Ukrainian resistance in the industrial eastern town of Avdiivka is near a breaking point amid renewed Russian efforts to surround—and capture—the town, according to a local military official.
“Things in the Avdiivka sector have become even tougher,” Vitaliy Barabash, Avdiivka’s Kyiv-appointed military governor, told local media on Nov. 27.
“The intensity of clashes has been increasing for some time.”
Avdiivka is located some 30 miles south of the city of Bakhmut, which fell to Russian forces in May after nine months of fighting.
Home to a large coking plant and an industrial zone, Avdiivka sits 12 miles west of Donetsk, capital of the Russian-held region of the same name.
According to Russian officials, Ukrainian forces deployed in Avdiivka have used the town to shell targets—both military and civilian—in nearby Donetsk.
On Nov. 27, reports emerged—still unconfirmed—that Russian troops had overrun the industrial zone and are attempting to capture the coking plant.
Fighting has raged in Avdiivka since mid-October, when a months-long Ukrainian counteroffensive ground to a halt.
Despite repeated assaults along the 600-mile front line, Ukrainian forces ultimately failed to breach deeply entrenched Russian lines of defense. Kyiv and its allies now acknowledge that the vaunted counteroffensive largely fell short of achieving its main objectives.
While Ukrainian President Volodymry Zelenskyy rejects claims that the conflict has reached a stalemate, Moscow says Kyiv’s counteroffensive has “entirely failed.”
For the past six weeks, the primary locus of fighting has centered in and around Avdiivka, much of which has reportedly been reduced to rubble.
Less than 1,500 residents are said to remain in the town, which had been home to 32,000 people before the conflict.
Earlier reports out of Kyiv suggested that repeated Russian assaults on the town—from the east, west, and south—had been successfully repulsed.
However, according to Mr. Barabash, Ukrainian resistance now appears to be crumbling under the weight of renewed Russian onslaughts.
“The Russians have opened up two more sectors from which they have begun making assaults,” the military official said. “The enemy is now attempting to storm the city from all directions.”
Soaring Casualty Figures
According to Ukrainian and Western sources, Russian forces are taking heavy losses in their repeated assaults on the embattled town.In a Nov. 27 post on social media, the British Defense Ministry stated that the past six weeks “have likely seen some of the highest Russian casualty rates of the war so far.”
The heavy losses “have largely been caused by Russia’s offensive against the Donbas town of Avdiivka,” it stated.
According to the defense ministry, Russian forces have sustained an average of 931 casualties per day since the beginning of the current month. But the ministry goes on to note that this figure—the “methodology” of which it couldn’t verify—was obtained from Ukrainian military officials.
While Moscow rarely alludes to the fighting in Avdiivka in official statements, the Russian Defense Ministry last week announced overall Ukrainian casualty rates—claims that were no less difficult to verify.
According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Ukrainian forces have lost upward of 13,000 troops—and 1,800 pieces of military equipment—over the same period.
“Russian troop concentrations have successfully maintained active defense,” Mr. Shoigu said at a Nov. 21 ministry briefing.
“They have held their positions along the entire line of contact and continue to improve their situation incrementally.”
The defense chief claimed that supplies of munitions to the Russian frontline had increased by nearly a factor of five since the beginning of 2023.
Mr. Shoigu went on to assert that large numbers of Ukrainian troops had surrendered “after realizing the futility of trying to breach our defenses.”
The Epoch Times couldn’t independently verify the Russian defense minister’s claims.
‘Difficult’ Situation
Regardless of the veracity of the Russian assertions, even NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has conceded that the battlefield situation was less than ideal.“We need to realize that the situation on the battlefield is difficult,” Mr. Stoltenberg said on Nov. 16.
“We are seeing how Russia has tried to launch offensive operations around Avdiivka,” he said during a joint press conference with Latvia’s president.
The situation in the contested town “is more difficult than we hoped,” according to Mr. Stoltenberg.
Russia invaded Ukraine early last year, capturing broad swathes of territory in the eastern Donbas region—which includes Donetsk—and along the Black Sea coast.
With the support of its Western allies, led by the United States, Kyiv has vowed to recover all lost territory. This includes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia effectively annexed in 2014.
