According to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the Avdiivka Military Administration, Russian war criminals from the Russian Armed Forces have been storming the Avdiivka area for three days in a row, using a large number of manpower and military equipment.
What is known about the situation in the Avdiivka area
Barabash noted that the situation remains very dynamic and difficult.
The situation is getting tenser by the day. The enemy is using a lot of military equipment after the ground has frozen due to low temperatures. In principle, our commanders understood this, expected it and prepared for it. As a result, dozens of enemy vehicles moving in our direction have been hit and burned over the past two days. In addition, on average, the enemy has been launching 30-40 massive strikes per day. According to air shelling data, we have recorded about 6-8 shellings of the city over the past week, the head of the Avdiivka CMA said.
According to him, the Russian occupiers are trying to carry out an assault near Avdeevka with a "massive attack", but the Ukrainian military is confidently holding the defence.
These "meat attacks" are happening all the time, from many directions. It is not one, not three, not five such directions, but actually dozens. They are coming in small groups of 5-8-10 people, trying to storm from many directions at the same time. They are trying to find a gap in our defence line. But our armed forces are holding the line of defence and repelling these attacks. Over the past 24 hours, there have been almost 50 enemy attacks, and all of them were in our direction, Barabash explained.
He emphasised that Russian war criminals constantly change the tactics of assault operations.
The first wave — they drove as if on parade, with a lot of equipment and very defiant. They thought they were just going to stop and drive off, it's not clear what they were counting on. As a result, hundreds of enemy vehicles were destroyed in the first wave. The second wave differed from the first wave in that they divided the directions and several columns went in different directions. Not such large forces, smaller, there were several such columns, Barabash said.
He emphasised that the current waves of enemy attacks are being carried out with the involvement of a large number of infantry, as weather conditions have prevented Russian war criminals from using equipment.
This third wave, and maybe the fourth, honestly, it's hard to count how many of these waves there were. For a very long time, this third wave was constantly increasing and increasing in the number of assaults by infantry, without the use of equipment. Because the weather conditions did not allow it. And somewhere within a week and a half it seemed to us that this was already the peak of purely infantry assaults. But they continued to increase the number of directions and the number of personnel in their assaults. And their equipment was still gone the day before yesterday. Whether this is a continuation of the third or fourth wave, who knows. Tactics are constantly changing," emphasises the head of the CMA.
He added that during the third wave, unlike the previous two, the Russian invaders added two directions to their assault operations.
These are not new trends, they have existed before. But very occasionally small assault groups sometimes tried to be active. These are from Donetsk through Spartak to Avdiivka and from Yasynuvata through the so-called "industrial area" of Avdiivka. In this third wave, they are very actively applying these directions. And they have also added more or less a dozen more directions where their equipment cannot pass, because there is a railway road everywhere, there are more assault infantry there," Barabash explains.
What is known about the situation in Avdiivka itself
Also, the head of the Avdiivka CMA said that the evacuation of civilians from the city does not stop, but sometimes it is cancelled due to difficult weather conditions.
The day before yesterday we cancelled it because there was very heavy ice. In addition to the danger of shelling and FPV drones on the road. The evacuation activity has decreased a bit, on average 3-5 people go, today, for example, 7 people left. Although three weeks ago up to 30 people were leaving. At the moment, 1,242 people remain in the city, Barabash emphasised.
He noted that humanitarian aid continues to arrive in the city, but in somewhat smaller quantities.
Previously, an average of 23-24 tonnes of humanitarian aid was delivered to the city per month. Over the last three weeks, on average, we have been bringing in up to 1 tonne a week, maybe a little more. But there are stockpiles in the city. We have been stockpiling them since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The city will have enough food, hygiene products and medicines for about 2.5-3 months, the head of the CMA said.
He added that most of the civilian residents were being kept in the basements of the still surviving high-rise buildings around the clock.
Doctors have also remained in the city to provide essential first aid and distribute medicines to people at the volunteer station.
There are no surviving houses in the city, the basements are in destroyed buildings. Or they are basements in people's private homes. There are still two doctors and four nurses working in the town. Supplies of all groups of medicines needed by the hospital remain. Of course, there may not be something very specific, but we even have insulin that is stored at the correct temperature. Unfortunately, there are insulin-dependent people in town, and we have everything for them. If someone gets injured, we provide first aid at the hospital and then take them to safer communities, Barabash says.
