Battle for Avdiivka on November 2: critical situation developed and there was real threat of losing the city

Author: Yurii Butusov

Simulated combat conditions:

Today, Russian forces crossed the railway line near the Stepove village and began assault operations near the village itself north of Avdiivka. The Russian infantry has entrenched itself behind the railway, accumulating to expand the foothold and to attack the Avdiivka Coke Plant, a key complex of structures that controls the approaches to Avdiivka. The capture of the plant will mean the gradual but inevitable standstill of defenses and the capture of the city. Suddenly, it turned out that during the war in Avdiivka, not a single leader had built a rear line of defense, and it was necessary to entrench now, there were no ready-made positions. 

The Russian assault continues south of Avdiivka, where they are expanding the breakthrough in the area of the sand quarry near the Opytne village, which is the second direction of Avdiivka's coverage. Here the threat also intensifies.

In the fighting directly in the Avdiivka city, Ukrainian troops were successful. The 110th Mechanized Brigade skillfully repelled all Russian attacks, completely restored several positions that the enemy captured after massive assaults on October 10-19, and even improved its positions in some directions. At this time, there is no threat that the enemy will enter the city.

Why is Avdiivka a tactical trap for the Russians?

Now many will remember the scenario of the loss of Sieverodonetsk, Lysychansk, Soledar and Bakhmut. But the situation in Avdiivka is tactically different.

Firstly, the 110th Mechanized Brigade demonstrates exceptional combat capability and reliably holds the city, preventing the enemy from gaining a foothold in urban buildings. The enemy is advancing north and south of the brigade's positions.

Secondly, our troops have much more advantageous positions in terms of tactics and hold the flanks of the breakthrough well. Russian troops are advancing north of Avdiivka along a narrow corridor in a lowland up to 4 km wide. From this corridor, they are trying to cut off our supply routes to Avdiivka, which is 8 km wide. Most of the enemy's rotations and reserves are defeated during the advance, as Ukrainian troops securely hold their flanks and control the dominant heights with convenient sectors of attack. Russian infantry is suffering significant losses, and it is much more difficult for the enemy to attack and hold positions than for us to defend.

Thirdly, if the defense north of Avdiivka is stabilized, then even in positional defense, Russian troops will suffer losses many times higher than ours. The situation near Avdiivka carries much more risks for Russian troops than for us.

Fourthly, the Russian troops do not have a great advantage in numbers, the Ukrainians have a significant number of people and equipment.

Fifthly, the Russians advance exclusively with infantry without armored vehicles, because the equipment is effectively destroyed by our troops. The enemy is vulnerable.

But in order to take full advantage of our position, we need to stabilize the defense.

What should we do?

Our command has several scenarios.

First. The Bakhmut-Soledar scenario is to look for some units and send them one by one to "counterattacks", that is, headlong collisions with the advancing enemy, and counterattacks are reduced to the rapid exchange of manpower for temporarily equipped lines, where the infantry somehow has to dig in themselves, which leads to a rapid loss of combat capability. Count our forces by the number of people according to the Military Unit Size (MUS) report and by the number of flags on the map. All the advances of the enemy are justified by his great advantage in strength, not by the shortcomings of management. The main thing here is to constantly report that everything possible is being done, and efforts have been made to restore the situation.

Second. Normal scenario. To return the command of the troops south and south of the city to the command of the 110th Brigade, which understands the situation and is responsible for the result, as it was before during the main assaults. A unified system of reconnaissance assets, a unified system of destruction means is needed. Transfer at least two battalions for consolidation at the plant, with responsible commanders with appropriate combat experience and authority. The command of units that are not able to build a defense in the direction of Stepove should be immediately replaced by more proven and experienced ones. There are such brigade commanders and battalion commanders in the reserve of the General Staff. As for the quality of reserves: if someone thinks that a battalion is any crowd of six hundred mobilized with random commanders at the head, then it does not work that way, reserves are needed not random but managed. It is the tactical commanders who create the advantage in the war.

Stabilization of the defense will make it possible to suppress the Russian foothold in the area of Stepove and the plant from all sides and to establish a systematic destruction of the Russian infantry. Let them sit there like in a rifle-range. They will not be able to accumulate forces in that lowland, and it will be a great rifle-range for our guns.

Supreme Commander-in-Chief Zelenskyy held many meetings of the Staff regarding Avdiivka. But first of all, we must frankly say that the crisis around Avdiivka is not the result of an exceptionally large advantage of the Russians – it is also a crisis of some of our management decisions and approaches that do not give us the opportunity to realize our advantages.

For civil society:

If we want to hold Avdiivka – the importance of which is much higher even than Bakhmut – we need to help the soldiers of the 110th Mechanized Brigade with the maximum number of drones, and we need to install surveillance cameras at various facilities. In our power to turn a crisis into a victory, we need the maximum concentration of efforts.

Yurii Butusov, Censor.NET