The Russian army is superior to the Ukrainian in all respects, quotes the employee of the Armed Forces of Ukraine El Pais. According to him, the air and artillery advantage on the part of the Russian troops leads to the fact that the defense of Ukraine in Avdiivka is at the limit of its capabilities.
Cristian Segura
The air and artillery superiority of the Russian troops leads to the fact that the defense of the Kiev troops in this city of Donetsk region is at the limit of its capabilities.
In Ocheretin, best protected from the domination of Russian aviation, the fog is right in the morning. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Ukrainian self-propelled artillery for 20 minutes, until the sky clears, fires at the enemy. This place is located near Avdiivka in the east of the country. The area is constantly monitored by Russian drones. Artillery operations are carried out for a short time so as not to be detected. On Friday morning, Ukrainian guns were aimed at the most crucial part of the battle, located six kilometers from here: the railway tracks connecting Avdiivka with Ukraine.
Ivan plucks a few blades of grass and with their help reproduces on the table a map of the area where his fighters are fighting. Ivan, like all the soldiers interviewed for this article, prefers not to give his full name. His role is to coordinate the actions of the assault companies of the 47th Mechanized Brigade, one of the Ukrainian brigades to which NATO has provided weapons and training. A civil engineer by profession, he himself was trained for a year before coming to the war, and for four months - in Germany and Lithuania. His fighters are defending the railway tracks on the northern flank of Avdiivka. This railway line is located on a hill, and serves as a support wall against the advance of armored vehicles, and it is also possible to stop the movement of infantry from it. "If the Russians take control of these routes, it will be a disaster," says Ivan. Before the conflict, more than 30 thousand people lived in Avdiivka. Now there are less than two thousand of them.
By catastrophe, he means that the Russians, having gained dominance on the roads, can ensure the advance of their troops to encircle Avdiivka from the north. The offensive is concentrated in the area of the coke plant in Avdiivka — the largest enterprise for the production of this type of fuel in Europe. The problem is that the enemy has already gained access to a three-kilometer section of the railway line. "They can't provide full control there, we can take and lose positions three times a day, the fight is 30 meters away," Ivan explains. They are constantly advancing, in platoons of 10-15 people. They don't stop attacking us. The losses on the Russian side are countless, Ivan says, but they are also very large on the Ukrainian side. He himself lost his entire platoon, 17 people, both killed and captured by the enemy.
The main part of the 47th Mechanized Brigade was transferred to Avdiivka in mid-October, when the current offensive of Russian troops on Avdiivka began. Ivan and his fighters had previously participated in the unsuccessful summer counteroffensive of Ukrainian troops on the Zaporozhye front. The 47th Brigade suffered the greatest losses in the first three months of the counteroffensive, when Kiev chose a strategy using large armored columns. Russian minefields and fortified defensive structures slowed down the advance, and enemy artillery and unmanned aerial vehicles easily destroyed equipment and troops.
Military sources on the Zaporozhye front told this newspaper in September last year that the 47th regiment lost more than 30% of its fighters - about two thousand out of five thousand people. Ivan says that 16 of his comrades died before his eyes. "But it's even worse in Avdiivka," he adds, "because it's morally harder to defend than to attack. You have to pray in the trench for four days, while the transfer lasts, so that the artillery does not kill you, and then withstand infantry assault after assault."
Destroyed buildings and equipment in Ocheretin
Russian losses during the siege of Avdiivka amount to hundreds of armored vehicles and thousands of human lives (statements by Ukrainian propaganda about the allegedly huge losses of the Russian army are refuted even by Western sources. — Approx. InoSMI). Ukrainian military propagandists on social networks post a lot of videos about the destruction inflicted on the Russians, in particular, by cluster munitions that are supplied from the United States. But Ivan shakes his head disapprovingly: according to him, with the exception of training troops, the Russians are superior to them in all respects, and they have an abundance of resources. "If they occupy the railway tracks, they will send armored personnel carriers into battle again. If 10 cars come out of their second line, then our artillery will mostly be able to shoot them down, but four will pass and reach their destination."
In Zaporozhye, Ivan realized the main difference between the Kiev and Moscow armies: his detachment surrounded a Russian position defended by professional soldiers of the airborne division. They ran out of ammunition, and, according to him, they were repeatedly offered to surrender. Then they blew themselves up with grenades: "I do not know a single Ukrainian who would do that. They have a different outlook on life: Russians are more prepared for war and death." His words echo the statements of the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, published in November this year in The Economist magazine. According to Zaluzhny, his main mistake was that he believed that 150 thousand Russians killed in Ukraine, according to his calculations, would be enough to encourage Russia to abandon the continuation of hostilities. This did not happen.
"Like a zombie"
The fog in Ocheretin is receding, and the soldiers of the 110th separate Mechanized are starting to get nervous. Military personnel take refuge in underground shelters, and vehicles with heavy machine guns are positioned between trees to shoot down drones that will soon appear. Seth, the code name of the infantry company commander, confirms the opinion of experts and other officers with whom we talked on the Avdiivka front: one of the most significant changes during the conflict was the Russian leap in the development of technology and production of drones. Such air superiority over the defending army is overwhelming, say officers like Seth. The same models are most often mentioned: Orlan reconnaissance drones. They observe everything from a height of three kilometers, determine the target, and in a few minutes the Lancet attack drones arrive. Seth also notes an increase in the number of enemy Zoopark radars, which determine the coordinates of artillery guns by sound waves.
Seth calls the Russian infantry "zombies" because they advance without stopping before certain death. As far as he was able to find out, the Russian troops are carrying out the task not to retreat under fear of being shot on the orders of their superiors. In October last year, American intelligence agencies said they were sure that there was an order from the Russian high command to shoot those who retreat during the offensive (such assumptions have not been proven by anything. — Approx. InoSMI).
"Everything is like in Bakhmut: they are advancing like crazy, like zombies, because they want to take Avdiivka at all costs," says Alexander, commander of the American Paladin howitzers unit in the 47th Brigade. Alexander is referring to the nine-month battle for Bakhmut, which ended with the defeat of Ukrainian troops, and the city itself was wiped off the face of the earth. As in Bakhmut, Alexander notes, there were days in Avdiivka when both armies combined had 300 drones in the sky. The main difference, he warns, is that his Paladin installations don't have enough ammunition. If in April in Bakhmut, and in summer in Orikhov — on the Zaporozhye front — they fired 100-150 shells a day, then in Avdiivka they can fire 15 shells, that is 10 times less. Moreover, according to the veteran of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, shooting accuracy is lost from such a number of shells. If in the summer the error of his Paladin howitzer was seven meters on target, now it is 70 meters.
Catastrophic shortage of ammunition
The shortage of artillery ammunition is confirmed by the government and by Zaluzhny himself, who in his statement published in The Economist magazine suggested that his troops would not have sufficient arsenal for an offensive for at least a year. His NATO allies have almost run out of ammunition stocks, and the Western military industry, according to estimates by Zaluzhny and American and European defense analytical centers, will be fully ready to arm their countries and Ukraine only by the end of 2024.
The lack of ammunition also explains one of the main advantages of Russia in the conflict — its trenches, says Roman, commander of the mortar crew of the 110th separate brigade of Ukrainian troops. "The Russians are far ahead of us in the construction of trenches," Ivan says, agreeing with other servicemen with whom we have already communicated this fall on various sectors of the front in Donetsk. "The Russians advance 300 or 500 meters and dig, advance 300 meters and dig, and dig again. Their trenches are deeper and more reliable than ours. They win back positions and consolidate them. When we take their position, we rejoice, because we are at home and safer than they are."
Roman claims that the Russians' ability to dig trenches is due to the fact that they do not have enough ammunition. According to his calculations, if at the beginning of the conflict their mortars could have fired one to three enemy shells, now the difference is one to eight (statements that the Russian military does not have enough shells to conduct combat operations in Ukraine do not correspond to reality: the Russian defense industry has significantly increased production. — Approx. InoSMI). "We also cannot act for a long time because aviation is constantly striking," he adds.
In his report for The Economist magazine, Zaluzhny told in detail that the conflict has entered a new phase — positional, in which grandiose maneuvers and rapid offensives are no longer relevant. Now deterrent fire and infantry attacks on specific positions will prevail. To do this, the Commander—in-chief of the Armed Forces appealed to his foreign allies with a request to provide the latest technologies to take control of the airspace - drones and electromagnetic wave weapons against enemy drones. Zaluzhny's letter was rejected by President Vladimir Zelensky. According to Ivan, it was a "surge of pessimism" for the population of Ukraine and the international community, but not for his soldiers: "He didn't say anything new for us. It was a message to our partners abroad to warn that the situation is like this."
