IN DEPTH REPORT: Avdeevka Turns Critical as Iskander Strike Devastates AFU Staging Area

Another huge breakthrough has occurred in Avdeevka that may have put the final nail in the coffin of the bitterly disputed town. Though Avdeevka is smaller than Bakhmut, Mariupol, and many other captured towns, it actually—in some ways—represents a crowning offensive achievement of the war because it has been fought for continuouslythe longest, and as a consequence, was the most fortified of any town.

I posted ‘Sitrep’ maps and updates from literally 2015 before, showing how the same exact areas like Yasinovskaya to the east of ‘Tsar’s Hunt’ was being contested with footage of battles nearly a decade ago. So for Avdeevka to fall now would be a monumental and symbolically watershed moment of this conflict.

The latest news brings us confirmation from both sides that Russian forces have broken through to the ‘Industrial Avenue’ and beyond, which has entirely severed the city into two parts, cutting the supply route:

 

As well as Bild’s Julian Roepcke:

 

You can see above that since our last update here there have been other advancements and expansions of territory, particularly around the big lake area and the suburb zone of the salient.

A wider view with supply routes visible:

 

Rumors have abounded in the past few days that Syrsky had withdrawn elite units from the Rabotino and Verbove fronts to immediately reinforce Avdeevka. This includes more of the 47th as well as the 3rd Assault Brigade, better known as ‘Azov’.

 

Some rumors claimed Syrsky was getting ready to launch a major northern ‘unblocking’ attack, in order to pull Russian forces away from the center. It is precisely what he did previously in Bakhmut, attempting to assault areas around Berkhovka to pressure Wagner’s flanks as they were making their way through the city. But seeing how telegraphed such an assault would be this time, many are rightfully skeptical.

It's been four days since Syrsky withdrew from the southern front and transferred 3 brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to Avdeevka. The successes of this best elite assault brigade so far have been only failures.

Initially, I considered the actions of the 3rd OShBR on Avdeevka, and naively believed that they would be concentrated north of the city, and relying on the bridgehead in Ocheretino and Orlovka, they would try to “pull apart” the RF Armed Forces along the flanks, accompanying the assaults of 5-6 Btgr with artillery preparation.

But Syrsky’s command turned out to be “smarter.” They brought them into the city. And also in Berdychi and Tonenkoye, apparently to contain our “mites”. At the moment, yes. But not in the long run. Keeping the city and flanks in the fields with stormtroopers is a big deal.

What the above post is saying is, instead of using the new brigades to open up a new direction on Russia’s weaker flanks to the north, Syrsky instead threw the brigades directly into the center of battle. This was corroborated by a new video showing what is purported to be a 3rd ‘Azov’ Brigade MaxPro MRAP taking mortar fire precisely near the center of the AKHZ Coke Plant.

Geolocation:

 

What’s interesting though, is that reports claimed the ‘elite’ 47th was complaining that there aren’t any proper fortifications, and no time to set them up:

Avdiivka. The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is increasingly throwing artillery and supplies from the rear into infantry battles in order to stop the offensive of the Russian Army. The 47th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports almost complete absence of fortifications and lack of time to equip them - round-the-clock attacks, they are more busy with evacuation and rotation. They sit in pits.

Such an expensive defense by artillery was observed by the AFU in Bakhmut exactly a year ago, obviously it did not justify itself, but allowed for a short period of time to plug holes in the front line.

Avdeevka was the most fortified place in existence but Russian mass fires and airpower have been regularly destroying all such fortifications, leaving little time to rebuild or fashion new ones.

Pro-Ukrainian channels, even military-linked ones, are fairly disconsolate as they fear Syrsky will once again grind down the best men in pointless defenses. One of the largest pro-UA OSINTers:

 

Deepstate UA:

Ukrainian TG channel DeepState reports: "It is worth making decisions that will first of all save the most valuable thing - the lives of soldiers, and not turn Avdiivka into another "fortress" with songs and poems."

After witnessing the nightmare of Bakhmut, they now understand what awaits the soldiers in Avdeevka. But what’s most interesting, is you’ll recall that their narrative was previously that Bakhmut was a ‘successful operation’ because it allegedly ground down such a disproportionate number of Russian troops, that the city defense served its purpose. But when that truth is put to the test in reality, Ukrainians instead recognize that it’s actually them getting ground down amid desperate calls for withdrawal. If Bakhmut was such a ‘success’, then they would be happy to keep their men in Avdeevka and inflict another such ‘success’ against Russian attackers.

In fact, the Bakhmut comparisons are making the rounds even on French TV. The report below confirms how Russian forces have fire control of the supply routes, which is generating far more casualties in the past few days than ever before. Soldiers who fought in Bakhmut and other tough battles told the French team that Avdeevka is now worse than them all:

One of the cited reasons for it being worse than Bakhmut is the Russian airpower is far more active in Avdeevka. With the industrialization of the UMPK bombs, Russian planes are dropping them round the clock, upwards of 100 per day just here alone. In Bakhmut, there was no such firepower.

For instance, read this report from a Ukrainian volunteer below:

 

A Ukrainian volunteer reports that in the first third of February alone, the Russian Aerospace Forces dropped about 460 aerial bombs from UMPK on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This includes FAB-250/500/1500 and ODAB.

Here’s one view of Avdeevka from the south Tsar’s Hunt area, looking northward toward the AKHZ plant, through the Khimik highrise sector, with Fab bombs going off on AFU positions: (The original video does not play due to coding issues. We are replacing that with the following item, also coming from AFU sources):

Screenshot: The 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Defence Forces of Ukraine has posted a video from the cellars of the Avdiivka Coke Plant, where medics are stabilising the wounded and soldiers take shelter from Russian attacks. Quote: "This footage was shot by members of the 3rd Assault Brigade. They are sheltering inside the plant from the constant Russian attacks while medics stabilise the wounded – even as the ceiling crumbles from more attacks with KAB bombs." (Source: Press service of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade/ Yahoo)

 

But it gets even worse for the AFU.

Amid rumors that Syrsky was planning a large-scale ‘unblocking operation’, the past two days were witness to several videos showing large AFU force concentrations allegedly ‘training’ somewhere in the rear area not far from Avdeevka:

It’s uncertain if it was meant as some kind of ‘threatening’ message toward Russian forces, but it may have instead precipitated something the Ukrainians didn’t expect.

Today, two devastating missile strikes occurred on Ukrainian troop concentrations. The first was a massive Iskander-M ballistic missile attack on precisely one of the ‘rear staging areas’ less than 30km from Avdeevka, in a town called Selidovo:

 

Sources began reporting that there were as high as 1,500 Ukrainian casualties because the Russian attack allegedly “triple-tapped” them by first hitting the gathering, then waiting until evacuation forces arrived and hitting them again—and most notably, some believe it was precisely the ‘Azov’ units that were there:

 

Even the top pro-UA accounts reported the potential for 1,500 casualties at once:

 

Rezident UA channel:

"Our source in the General Staff reported that Syrsky has ordered to suppress any information about losses at the training ground in Salidovo, the city was the main transit base for the reserves of the UAF, which were being gathered to unblock Avdeevka."

All kinds of reports flooded in from both sides, with one of the common themes between the two being that the entire city was locked down, with SBU allegedly searching for infiltrators who might have transmitted the data about the gathering:

 

As well as reports from Ukrainians in the area of mass amounts of ambulances flooding the hospitals there:

 

Ex-Aidar deputy commander Ihor Mosiychuk once more confirmed the news from his sources:

 

He mentions something corroborated in Russian reports: that Iskanders with cluster munitions were allegedly used on the troop gathering.

More:

 

In the Selidovo area, traffic has been restricted; in the next 24 hours, the dead will be removed from the landfill. The SBU began searching for gunners among the locals who could help strike a concentration of enemy manpower at the training ground, which was hit by several missile strikes. The death toll is in the dozens.

AFU sector general Tarnavsky issued a damage control statement that there was no strike, or rather the number of casualties is Russian propaganda. However, a few AFU channels like the one below confirmed; though they made a strange ‘brag’ of it by basically saying “Russia only killed 200, not the claimed 1,500!”

 

Some of course have extrapolated that to mean 200 KIA with perhaps hundreds more wounded, but we may never learn the real amount. Needless to say, this was meant to be Avdeevka’s last stand and what is arguably an entire battalion was wiped off the face of the earth with a single strike. It’s a pretty demonstrative symbol of how Avdeevka is going.

If that wasn’t bad enough, on the same day there was another strike on Tsukirino, only 5km south of Selidovo at geolocation 48.090782, 37.290670:

Against the backdrop of a highly debated attack on the temporary deployment point of Ukrainian forces in the city of Selidovo, footage has emerged of a strike on a parking lot of Ukrainian equipment in the village of Tsukurino, which is located slightly to the south.

The enemy's position was identified from the air, and rocket artillery was used to attack the targets. The video shows that the Russian Armed Forces initially used shells with cluster warheads. After the equipment was evacuated, conventional ammunition was used.

Coordinates: 48.090782, 37.290670

Meanwhile, the content of the material sharply contradicts the claims made by propagandists of the Kyiv regime, who stated that only two two-story buildings were damaged during the shelling of the populated area. If we judge by this, then more than just a couple of these "buildings" will end up in Avdeevka, where they were intended to be sent to strengthen the troop grouping.

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However, I’m not aware of any real data on the losses in this strike, though you can clearly see that a concentration of vehicles and some buildings appeared to be hit.

 

As a last note on Avdeevka, the southern-most area near the old air defense base is pretty much in a boiler now:

 

 

If that falls, it will flatten the line and allow Russia to bring its forces to bear on the Khimik section with the highrises which connect to the last usable supply route—seen with yellow arrows below—for that semi-encircled southern grouping:

 

A more zoomed-out view shows that the cauldron is very close to shutting, and can trap the entire contingent of what’s said to be 2500-3000 remaining AFU in the main part of Avdeevka, leaving just the northern Coke Plant with its small supply lifeline toward Orlovka:

 

Rumors from about a week ago had already said that AFU knew Avdeevka was a done deal, and were merely delaying in order to build the secondary fallback line they could retreat to afterwards. One report states this line is roughly as follows:

The enemy creates reserve lines between Kurakhovo and Progress, as well as Kalinovo-Toretsk. The fate of Avdiivka has already been decided, the city is being held only to delay time for building a new line of defense for the summer of 2024.

As a result of the latest assaults by the Russian army, the supply corridor in the southern part of the city has narrowed to 1 km and is being completely shot through by our artillery and other means of destruction.

When it collapses completely north of the railway station, the APU will have to supply semi-surrounded units only through underground communications, and with such logistics they will not stand for a long time.

In the near future, an air defense unit is expected to fall on the southern front, after which our attacking units will connect with units in the area of Chernyshevsky, Sportivnaya and Sobornaya Streets, thereby creating conditions for an assault on the Khimik district. According to the most optimistic forecasts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they will begin withdrawing forces at the end of March, according to pessimistic ones, in 1-2 weeks.

The mentioned towns circled in yellow: Progres, Kalynovo, and Kurakhove:

 

If you look closely at the map north of Kurakhove and southwest and west of the circled Kalynove, you can see the towns of Selidovo and Tsukirino merely a few kilometers away. This shows they are the direct ‘rear staging area’ of the new defense line the AFU has designated for when the Avdeevka front falls.

One must recall that Russian forces have been making advances in both Pervomaisk, just south of Avdeevka, as well as Novomikhailovka, south of Marinka, and Georgievka just west of Marinka. For instance, as seen in the latest Suriyak maps, a major portion of east Novomikhailovka has already been taken:

 

This is pushing the entire front toward that yellow line in the map above. And when all those areas fall, the frontline will begin straightening out directly across from that claimed new ‘defense line’.

Some more info:

Avdiivka. The defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is being built in three echelons, and the main supply hub is located in the village of Novaya Poltavka-located between Konstantinovka and Pokrovsky. From Novaya Poltavka, through the village of Progress to the south, Novoselovka Pervaya and to Orlovka, supplies have been built. Ocheretino railway station is no longer used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces as it was at the beginning of the battle for the city.

Also, the head of public relations of the 110th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ivan Sekach, said that currently, they do not have sufficient capabilities to hold Avdeevka, with some sources even claiming the 110th was forced to withdraw entirely due to heavy losses:

 

I mentioned that Russian forces have been advancing in Pervomaisk, Georgievka, and Novomikhailovka, all on the Donetsk front. However, there have also been big new advances on the northwest Artemovsk front with Russian Airborne forces pushing in toward Chasov Yar:

 

“Russian troops advanced south of the Popovsky forest and west of Khromovo in an area up to 1.55 km wide to a depth of 750 m,” they write, underestimating our advance by about a third on their maps and reports.

"To the east of Ivanovo, the Russian Armed Forces (11th Airborne Brigade) continue attacks to improve the tactical situation along forest belts, attacking with small infantry groups."

“The Russians advanced in the northern outskirts of Ivanovsky, occupying the lowlands,” write other Kyiv resources.

As well as reported advances in Kupyansk area, most notably in Belgorovka:

 

 

Ukrainian journalist Butusov confirms how Russian forces appear to be breaking through Ukrainian defenses on every front:

The defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is bursting at the seams along the entire front line. The panic sentiment is being dispersed by a Ukrainian journalist, a former adviser to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Yuriy Butusov. According to him, a critical situation has developed for the Ukrainian Armed Forces along the entire front line due to the offensive of the Russian army. The Russian Army had a great advantage along the entire line of combat contact and went on the offensive “in almost all sectors,” and Kiev left the Armed Forces of Ukraine without reinforcements, Butusov summarized.

And an inebriated-looking Syrsky even told German ZDF channel that Russia is ‘advancing on every front’:

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This is particularly notable given my upcoming Part 2 article, which will deal precisely with how Russian forces will continue taking up the next phase of offensives to exhaust and break Ukraine via the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strategy, though there are some rumors to a few potential ‘surprises’ as well. Stay tuned for that ‘not-to-be-missed’ report in the next few days.

Lastly, most notable is during these advances of the past few days there has been a large uptick in captures of POWs, with at least half a dozen videos or more being seen, such as: Here, Here, and Here—and many more:

 

 

A last few sundry items:

A Ukrainian Mi-8 was spectacularly shot down by a Russian manpad in the Zaporozhye region:

Next:

On the topic of losses, here a Ukrainian soldier discusses his time on the Kremennaya front, and how 100+ per day simply disappeared in the Sebrensky (Silver) Forest there:

Next:

Commander of the infamous Nazi battalion ‘Da Vinci Wolves’ says Ukraine needs minimum 250,000 more soldiers or they simply won’t be able to fight:

Next:

The editor-in-chief of Rothschild-owned Economist rag, Bilderberg member Zanny Minton Beddoes, has some jaw-dropping words about Ukraine and Ukrainians:

In essence: “They’re being killed, not us! So let’s keep this racket going!”

Next:

Last time I reported about General Syrsky’s ties to Russia. Now there’s new videos showing the next door neighbor of his Russian parents, who live in Vladimir near Moscow. The neighbor says she overheard his parents having video calls with him every day, during which he openly told them he hates Ukrainians:

The mother and brother of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky live on the outskirts of the Russian city of Vladimir. A neighbor of Vladimir and Galina Syrskikh said that they regularly call up via video link and General Syrsky himself speaks about the Ukrainians as follows: "They are cunning and sneaky. I can't stand them."

That’s not to mention this video of a family friend who states:

“This is grief for her” - Syrsky’s mother, living in Vladimir, cries after his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, their friend said.

The friend told Ruptly that his parents are patriots of Russia. They are already elderly people and they lived their lives the way the whole country lived. So they are very sad. She's crying. It doesn’t matter what position he holds there, what matters is that they are on opposite sides now. When they found out what their son was doing in Ukraine, they were ashamed to look people in the eyes, another friend of the family told RT earlier.

And sleuths have apparently uncovered the video showing Syrsky taking part in the 1986 military parade on the Red Square as part of the Red Army:

❗️The new Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, Alexander Syrsky, took part in a parade on Red Square in 1986. He was spotted on a video shot during the event.

At that time, Syrsky was a cadet at the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.

It does begin to lend a case to the theory that perhaps he’s some kind of Russian plant tasked with sabotaging the AFU. After all, why would he be secretly telling his parents he hates Ukrainians while serving in the highest ranks of their military?

I’ll end on this more uplifting note, a video from the Chechen Akhmat forces showcasing the vast multiethnic and multiconfessional nature of Russia and its Armed Forces which together fight for one Fatherland:

They all fight for one FATHERLAND.

Special forces "AKHMAT" is a symbol of the unity of the peoples of Russia. Here, each warrior represents his people, centuries-old history, and wonderful culture. The flame of love for the Fatherland burns in their hearts, which unites them in a common desire to defend our Motherland. Here, among different cultures and nationalities, one can hear pride for one’s country, for one’s brothers in arms, for every flag raised and every task completed. Together they form an indestructible shield protecting our historical land. The AKHMAT special forces are, without exaggeration, the pride of Russia, which by their personal example shows that together we are capable of great achievements in the name of a great goal!

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• Simplicius is the nom de guerre of an Slavonic geopolitical analyst.