Ukraine Withdraws From Position South of Embattled Avdiivka as Kremlin Infantry Advances

Ukraine on Friday said it was pulling back from a position on the southern outskirts of the city of Avdiivka, where heavy battles were raging with Russian forces. 

"After many months of confrontation, the command decided to withdraw from the Zenit position on the southeastern outskirts of Avdiivka... The decision was made to save personnel and improve the operational situation," Oleksandr Tarnavsky, a Ukrainian general in the east, said on social media.

Russian troops captured a key fortress in the battleground city Avdiivka on Thursday, forcing Ukrainian troops to fall back hundreds of meters through a gauntlet of artillery and mortar fire.

Infantrymen reportedly from 1st Army Corps had by early evening cleared the Cheburashka Zenit defense complex of all resistance, ending weeks of bloody assaults against a Ukrainian bastion of trenches and fortifications on the south-western outskirts of the city.

Both Russian and Ukrainian media reported Ukrainian troops had evacuated the formidable fortification network first built in 2014 Kyiv following the Kremlin’s first invasion of Ukraine and improved since then. Ukrainian troops forced to fight their way out of a near-total encirclement in a bid to reach friendly lines had to abandon wounded and suffered casualties as they retreated, reports from both sides said.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine’s (AFU) loss of the Cheburashka-Zenit citadel marked the greatest single day gain of ground by Kremlin forces in the Adviivka sector since October, when Moscow launched a major offensive to capture the city and eliminate a long-standing Ukrainian salient projecting some ten kilometers into Russian lines.

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Russian state television led Thursday evening news with triumphant reports of the victory and images of infantrymen standing inside the Zenit complex holding the Russian flag and a banner from 1st Army Corps. Ukrainian forces had fallen back two kilometers and some units had broken as they ran in panic, the Kremlin reports claimed.

Most Ukrainian sources reported troops retreated under pressure but that unit discipline held as soldiers fell back, generally in good order, to prepared positions. Some Ukrainian sources said soldiers manning the Zenit positions made an escape to friendly lines across open farm fields pelted with Russian shells, mortars and  and machine gun fire.

Viktor Bilyak, a member of 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 110th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the unit based at Zenit, in an Instagram post said higher command denied medical evacuation to wounded and six men of his 15-20 men section were abandoned to the Russians.

There were no early reports of overall Ukrainian losses in the retreat. During the 2014-2021 period, the AFU normally deployed 200-300 men to hold the Cheburashka-Zenit fortification complex.

“We value every piece of Ukrainian land but the highest value and priority for us is the protection of the life of the Ukrainian soldier. The Adviivka defensive operation is continuing. Our soldiers are continuing to destroy the army of the enemy and are cutting to pieces the resources and reserves of the enemy which he, not counting the losses, is throwing into the battle,” General Oleksandr Taranavsky, commander of Ukraine’s Joint Forces East, said in a 23:00 Thursday official statement.

On Friday house-to-house fighting reportedly was in progress along the north-eastern front of the Avdiivka salient, with the most intense combat in the city’s industrial district. Russian air strikes and ground assaults against the Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant and its connecting rail line, the center of Ukrainian resistance in that sector, were reported as well. 

A Friday statement from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, a reserve unit transferred to Adviivka on Monday and Tuesday by Kyiv in an attempt to shore up defenses, said that the Russian air force was dropping 60 bombs a day at targets around the city, in an effort to flatten Ukrainian positions.

The brigade was facing seven to one odds and taking losses, but on Thursday two Russian armored columns of 6-8 combat vehicles each attempted to push into positions newly-occupied by the 3rd and were repelled with heavy losses, unit official statements and individual soldiers said. 

Mykola “Abdula” Volokhov, commander of a 3rd Assault strike drone unit, in a Thursday evening interview told Ukrainska Pravda magazine brigade aviators set a one-day wartime record for destroyed Russian vehicles and personnel.

Oleksander Borodin, a 3rd Brigade spokesman, said Ukrainian troops in Adviivka were facing “a very difficult situation” against elements of two main force Russian armies, and that most attacking troops were regular Russian army paratrooper infantry or special forces. Social media video purportedly uploaded by 3rd Assault soldiers showed infantrymen in unprepared defenses near a railroad line.

The usually-reliable Ukrainian military information platform DeepState said Russian infantry backed with anti-aircraft cannon firing in support had captured the city bus station, the city water works and were approaching Avdiivka’s central 9th district, a section of the city built up with Soviet-era high rise apartment buildings dominating surrounding terrain. Fighting currently was house-to-house in adjacent individual family home suburbs, the report said.

Russian artillery was dominant and with Ukrainian guns firing back only rarely, and Russian air strikes were unceasing, practically all accounts said. A social media post purportedly from a 25th Airborne Brigade trooper in the Avdiivka sector said:

”They are raining down endlessly 24/7, there are no longer any trenches or dugouts from them. I am not calling anyone a traitor, but we we ask at least for some minimal anti-aircraft defenses. The (Russian) bombers are operating freely, we can fight everything they throw at us except this. We will stand as long as necessary…We have enough of everything, shortages of food, armored cars or something else is long in the past. (That we have). We need something of a different order of magnitude: Make it so that the enemy's aircraft does not fly."

Ukrainian forces face a yawning artillery shell shortage stemming from US Congressional unwillingness to advance further military aid to Kyiv, and slow implementation of EU nations to upscale shell production in Europe. Most Russian air strikes are with glider bombs dropped from well outside of AFU air defense weapons.

A Russian break-through to the north of Adviivka via the industrial district could, potentially, cut off and surround elements of at least three Ukrainian combat brigades, potentially 2,000-4,000 men, reportedly deployed to the sector.

Evhen Dikiy, a Ukrainian volunteer infantry commander deployed to sector adjacent to Avdiivka, said that the AFU high command has only limited time to contain the Russian assault.

“That’s why 3rd Assault got thrown in there. It’s an attack unit. The brigade is trained to gain ground, and specifically to gain ground in urban fighting. I think they have the mission to open up the supply line to Adviivka. They have the mission to throw the orcs away from the highway. If in the next two or three days they succeed in pushing the orcs away from the highway, then that’s one thing,” Dikiy said, during an interview on a national news program. “Then it will be possible to reinforce defenses, and to keep on fighting. But if in the next two or three days they aren’t successful, then I think they are going to get the mission to organize a corridor for the deliberate evacuation of the city.”