The battle for Avdiivka vs The battle for Bakhmut. Ukrainian military expert, veteran of Aidar Battalion Yevhen Dykyi gave his view on what is happening in Avdiivka right now and about comparing Avdiivka and Bakhmut:
Q: You compared the situation with Bakhmut, but the Russian military never managed to encircle Bakhmut, and they were taking Bakhmut precisely because there were combat encounters, and they went head-on to the Ukrainian troops. Now the situation in Avdiivka is not the same.
A: You remember absolutely correctly. This is exactly how it was. They were not able to encircle Bakhmut completely, although they were in such a situation as they are now with the Avdiivka highway. That is, they had already shelled all the routes, but they were not able to encircle them to the end, to close the pincers. And they were really pushing out our defenders literally block by block, house by house. I have many friends who fought in Bakhmut at that time. There were battles there, when sometimes one entrance of the house was ours, and the other was already enemy. That is, the positions were in neighboring basements, for example. I didn't hear about hand-to-hand combat, but hand grenades were thrown into each other's windows - it came to such fights there. These were very close, terrible street battles.
But let's take two differences into account.
The first difference between Bakhmut and Avdiivka: there was no industrial zone in Bakhmut, not even close. Bakhmut was mostly just an ordinary town. There was nothing similar to Avdiivka industrial zone there or Azovstal. And the second difference is the difference in reserves. Let me remind you that Russians pressed on Bakhmut for 10 months with these meat assaults. And in order for it to be successful, they had to mobilize 50 thousand convicts in the GULAG alone, to throw them all at Bakhmut, besides the usual army units. That is, it was in addition to the army units, not instead of them. But as far as I can tell, the Russian command is unlikely to have 50,000 convicts to throw at Avdiivka alone. Although "Storm Z" in Avdiivka has already been spotted."
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