Well, it finally happened: Avdeevka has fallen, or should I say Avdeyevka, as it’s being styled by many outlets like Sputnik now that it has returned home.
Embedded video by Simplicius The Thinker
Ukrainian forces retreated—or attempted to—from every part of Avdeevka, even in the Coke Plant, leaving the new front looking like this:
The yellow lines represent the rough direction of current battles as Russian forces reportedly attempt to storm Latochkino—with some early reports already claiming it has been taken, or at the least that AFU has withdrawn from it, creating a gray zone—with the logical extension that forces from the south near Severne will attempt to close the new gap formed north of the old Zenit/Air Defense Base area.
Interestingly, rumor has it that Zelensky was desperate to hold Avdeevka through his time at the Munich conference, so as not to be humiliated. However, the withdrawal order was only given because the 3rd Brigade (Azov) had already totally countermanded orders and began withdrawing on their own, with other units possibly following. To stave off total collapse of the command, Syrsky was forced to give an official order of withdrawal, but Zelensky is reportedly furious, as per Resident_UA channel:
Our source in the OP said that the Office of the President instructed the General Staff and the Security Council to conduct an investigation in the 3-brigade, which refused to comply with the order and enter Avdeevka in position. On Bankova, they are very angry at Syrsky, who promised to keep the city while Zelensky on a EU tour, but I had to urgently leave the most fortified positions that had been created in Avdeevka for ten years.
In quickly taking over such a large area, Russian MOD’s official numbers claim a likely record day with around 2300 AFU either killed, wounded, or captured:
And while the pro-UA crowd scoffed, interestingly Ukrainian MP Peter Derbal gave the number as 850 soldiers lost in the Avdeevka retreat:
There were some unconfirmed Russian reports of over 500 AFU prisoners being taken, and while I haven’t seen quite that high of a number, I can confidently say that yesterday was possibly the most videos of captured AFU that I’ve seen. I myself have posted probably over a dozen videos, and there are still yet others I didn’t even bother posting. Some samples: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and many others.
The most striking however was this young company officer, a lieutenant, who gave the juiciest details about the AFU’s battle order and plans for the Avdeevka zone:
[Continued]
Please go to Simplicius’s original post to watch the embedded videos and read the rest of his update on the liberation of Avdeevka.
It is interesting to note from the clip of Senior Lt. Gornagov having a chat with Alexander Vladimirovich Slaovich that Alexander mentions when asked that Canadians were amongst the Ukrainian brigade he was with in .
