Even in Kramatorsk, the nights are no longer peaceful; we wake up again with shaking windows and roaring air. It doesn't last long, but then it happens again and it lasts for hours. The front did not cool down after the Russians took Avdiivka, and in fact Moscow's troops entered another village called Lastochkine yesterday.
“To reorganize the defense to a more rearward position,” is Kiev’s official motivation, put forward by Strategic Forces Group spokesman Dmitry Likhovy. The village in question has no strategic value, but its capture means that the Russian soldiers have not stopped yet. In fact, Lastochkine is about 10 km west of Avdiivka. It could also be an “adaptation maneuver,” i.e. a tactical move to secure the latest conquest. But if we remember that for months we have been reading press releases from one side and the other that talk about advances and retreats of a few hundred meters, 10 km in one go is quite a lot. Especially when you consider the larger context of the Eastern Front.
BOTH The sides state that there are currently two lines of advance where very violent clashes are occurring: Marinka and Vuhledar. We are west and southwest of the city of Donetsk, where clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Kiev forces began ten years ago. Avdiivka is the third point of this northernmost semicircle. It is no coincidence that the person who announced the “complete liberation of Avdiivka from the Ukrainian armed forces” was Denis Pushilin, someone who built his career stoking hatred in eastern Ukraine with Moscow at his back, and now Putin was appointed governor of the annexed region. So, with the map in hand, the maneuver is clear: push the Ukrainians as far as possible from the former capital Donetsk (now the capital of one of the four regions annexed by Putin in 2022) and exploit their numerical and air superiority to occupy them as much ground as possible in a difficult time for the enemy. Note that Marinka and Vuhledar are also connected by a road, which allows you to control the entire area and could allow a pincer maneuver in the event of a breakthrough at either point.
“CURRENT “For 24 hours, the enemy tried to break through the defenses of our troops in Marinka 40 times,” Likhovy wrote on Facebook, “but the defense forces continue to detain the enemy in the surrounding areas.”
In the same areas, machine gun shots are occasionally heard, not only at the front but also in the cities behind the lines. “At best, they are soldiers in training,” explains Leon, a soldier who started as a volunteer in the territorial defense units and is now active, “but it could also be an attempt to shoot down a drone or an alarm from vanguard units.” “It seems that the bombardments are becoming more intense and insistent every day, another sign that the order to freeze this part of the front has not been given.
SUNDAY MORNING A sudden attack hit the Kostantinivka train station as well as the church and adjacent shops. The tracks are completely intact, but the beautiful building is a pile of smoky beams and rubble and the roof of the large waiting room has completely collapsed. Not far away, Russian rockets also destroyed a school building, firefighters battled the flames until the afternoon, while residents of buildings in front of the bombed building collected glass from their homes and worked to make balconies safe.
THE LONG COMPLEX Popular offered a typical picture of Donbass, lit by an unusually sunny day. Dozens of people stand behind the windows with hammers and tongs, loosening broken beams, breaking hinges, dropping already broken glass and shivering elderly women lining up at a Worldl Kitchen Aid stand handing out hot meals. A woman struck by a panic attack appeared to have forgotten how to walk. He held his head and couldn't cry even if he wanted to, while his legs moved so strangely that it seemed as if they were being operated on by someone else. A moment before she fainted, two young soldiers who looked like good countrymen held her up and forced her to sit on a nearby bench. When the woman finally managed to cry among the people in line, it seemed as if there had been a new explosion and many gave in to crying and screaming.