Russian strategic aircraft are keeping their distance from the embattled eastern Ukraine town of Avdiivka, the Ukrainian military has said, as Russia tries to encircle the fortified settlement.
In the past few days, Russian forces have used Su-35 aircraft to drop guided aerial bombs around Avdiivka. This is according to Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Tavria grouping of forces that covers the heavily fortified Ukrainian town. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
“These planes operate from a distance,” skirting around Ukrainian air defenses, Shtupun told Newsweek on Tuesday. “Over the past two days, more than 20 such airstrikes have been recorded,” he added. Russia initially used both jets and attack helicopters to launch strikes on Avdiivka in the early days of the onslaught, Shtupun said.
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Moscow’s forces began a concerted push around the town on October 10, and attacks on Avdiivka have waned and intensified in the weeks since. The settlement has become a flashpoint of fighting along the largely static front lines. This would be a significant symbolic and strategic victory for Russia, should the Kremlin claim it.
Avdiivka has been a thorn in Russia’s side since its proxy forces rose up in Donetsk in 2014, and Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine. In nine years, Ukraine has had the time to built up its defenses meticulously. It is “very difficult to displace them,” Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, U.K., told Newsweek as the assaults mounted in October.
From October 10, when Russia launched its offensive against Avdiivka, the Russians actively used Su-25 aircraft, Ka-52 and Mi-24 helicopters, Shtupun said. “However, after the loss of eight Su-25 subsonic attack aircraft near Avdiivka, the use of front-line aircraft and attack helicopters was significantly reduced.”
Shtupun had told Ukrainian media earlier this month that eight Russian Su-25s had been shot down around Avdiivka since Moscow zeroed in on the town.
Russia has made creeping advances around Avdiivka, prying territory away from Ukrainian control. Although Russian forces did not make any confirmed advances on Monday, the Kremlin ploughed on with operations around Avdiivka, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said in its latest assessment.
Ukrainian commanders reported a renewed effort around Avdiivka from Russian troops last week. However, the efforts likely came with “weaker mechanized capabilities than in the previous offensive waves that occurred in October,” the ISW said on Friday. Equipment losses and casualties are thought to be high for Russia around Avdiivka; the past month-and-a-half has “likely seen some of the highest Russian casualty rates of the war so far,” the British defense ministry said on Monday, adding that this is down to Russia’s designs on Avdiivka.
“Moscow is attempting to storm the city from all directions,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiivka’s military administration, said on Monday, according to media reports.
Ukrainian fighters are “firmly holding the defense” around Avdiivka, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who commands the Tavria forces, said on Tuesday. Russian troops continue to attack Avdiivka, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces added in a statement posted to social media on Tuesday.
Russia did not provide an update on its operations in Avdiivka on Tuesday. However, its southern group of forces fighting in the Donetsk region repelled three attacks and took out 135 Ukrainian fighters, including around the town of Chasiv Yar and the village of Klishchiivka, Moscow said.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.