2024-01-25 21:08:46
Their street has almost disappeared and, in some areas, Russian troops are almost 300 meters away. The battle is near: everything thunders while they load their belongings into the car, a drone flies overhead. Before leaving town, they take their two German shepherds with them. It is the account of the White Angels team, a special police unit, of the evacuation of a couple from the town of Avdivka, where barely 1,100 civilians remain.
What’s happening in the Ukraine war: kyiv digs in as winter hits the front lines with Russia on the offensive
Vladimir Putin’s Army is increasing its pressure and making some progress on this city in the Donetsk region, currently one of the great epicenters of the Ukrainian war and the focus of a fierce battle. Virtually surrounded on three sides by Russian troops, the town, or what remains of it – like many others it has been reduced to ruins by incessant bombing – is still in Ukrainian hands.
This Wednesday, the mayor of Avdivka said that the Russian Army had managed to enter the city for the first time, but was repelled. “Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups entered the southern part of Avdivka, but were repulsed,” he told AFP, assuring that the situation is “difficult” but “under control.” The mayor assured that it is the “first time” that Russian troops have entered the town, although he did not confirm when it had happened. As he said in another interview, Russia is putting pressure on the entire defense line around the city.
Advancement areas
of the russian army
Areas in which Ukraine
has regained control
Advancement areas
of the russian army
Areas in which
Ukraine has
regained control
Russian forces have intensified their attacks on Avdivka in recent days, trying to advance in the north of the town, with the increasingly frequent support of fighter jets, as explained this week by Ukrainian Army spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun. Casualties are believed to be high. A Ukrainian sniper described to CNN this week how the Russians launched wave after wave of attackers against entrenched defenders. “No one evacuates them, no one takes them,” he says. “It feels like people don’t have a specific task, they just go and die.”
As fighting continues, analysts have recently confirmed advances by Russia in the area and speak of a deteriorating situation for Ukrainian troops, especially in the southern residential area of the city, as Moscow attempts to press its advantage. in personnel and ammunition. “The situation is getting worse in Avdivka,” prominent expert Michael Kofman tweeted on Wednesday.
Emil Kastehelmi, an open source intelligence analyst and expert in military history, explained that significant bombing is taking place in the southern part of Avdivka. “The Ukrainian position, known as Zenit, has also been under intense fire. Russia has made attempts to capture it, but Ukraine still appears to control it. If the Russians could establish a permanent foothold in the southern areas of Avdivka, holding Zenit could prove more difficult,” he said on X this Wednesday. Asked whether he believes Ukrainian troops should abandon Avdivka, the expert responded that at the moment, kyiv “seems to be able to wear down the Russian military” there, but its losses are unclear.
New Sentinel images (23.1.) show significant shelling in the southern part of Avdiivka and in Bakhmut.
Russians managed to breach the defences and infiltrate southern Avdiivka, but according to Ukrainians, the attack was repelled and the situation is now under control. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/OrF55qkNBW
— Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) January 24, 2024
Since October, the Russian Army has intensified pressure to surround the city of Avdivka, located a few kilometers from the city of Donetsk – in the hands of Putin’s troops. The city, one of the key points in the Russian attempt to take over Donbas, has been on the front line since 2014 and its capture is considered to reinforce Russian control over the city of Donetsk.
Russia is currently pressing in different parts of eastern Ukraine with the aim of taking over Donbas, despite heavy losses, although progress so far has been slow. Recently, they also appear to have made some progress in Kreminna to the northeast, and the battle continues in Bakhmut, captured by Russian troops in May after a costly battle of attrition.
As they face shortages of shells and manpower, Ukrainian forces have adopted a more defensive posture in many areas of the snow-covered front after the failure of their counteroffensive last year against heavily defended Russian lines in the south and the east of the country.
Crossing of accusations about the crashed plane
Meanwhile, the exchange of accusations continues between kyiv and Moscow over the crashed military transport plane on which, according to Russian authorities, 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war were traveling and was shot down by Ukrainian forces. A video spread on social networks and verified by international media shows how a large aircraft falls to the ground and explodes in a huge fireball in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine and a vital stop in Russian supply lines.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has announced that it has opened a terrorism case, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov has accused Ukrainian forces of committing a “monstrous act.” Russian media report that two black boxes have been recovered from the wreckage of the plane and the devices will be delivered to a special laboratory of the Ministry of Defense.
For now, many questions remain unanswered.
Authorities in kyiv have not explicitly denied the downing of the Il-76, but have questioned the details of Moscow’s account, insisting that they cannot confirm that it had on board captured Ukrainian soldiers who were to be exchanged for Russian military personnel.
Ukraine did confirm that a prisoner exchange would take place this Wednesday, but has accused Russia of not having asked it to guarantee the security of the airspace over Belgorod. A senior Russian lawmaker has said that Ukrainian military intelligence had received 15 minutes’ warning before the plane entered an area where it was supposedly shot down.
The spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, assured this Thursday that Moscow has not yet provided evidence that there were Ukrainian prisoners on board. He has also stated that in the videos of the scene published on the Internet no remains of human bodies are seen and has pointed out that, according to the information available to them, only five bodies were taken to the Belgorod morgue the day before.
The same spokesman has suggested that there could be both S-300 missiles and people on board. On Wednesday, as news of the crashed plane began to circulate, sources in the Ukrainian military told the country’s media that the aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles, which Russia regularly uses to bomb Ukraine. Initially, the publication Ukrainska Pravda, citing a Ukrainian military source, reported that Ukrainian troops were involved in the downing of the plane, but later corrected the article explaining that another military source had not confirmed this information.
The Ukrainian Security Service has launched an investigation and the country’s authorities are also insisting on an independent international investigation, but the plane crashed on Russian territory, which may hamper any efforts in this regard. “It is necessary to establish all the facts precisely,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday. “The Russians play with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, the feelings of their families and the emotions of our society.”
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