The war near Donetsk has not changed in essence its positional character. Advance in the Avdiivka direction stalled again.

The reasons are the same as two, three, four, five, six months, seven years ago (the capture of Maryinka in 2015 and retreat) – lack of strength and fierce resistance from the enemy.

Roughly speaking, with tactical success in a separate sector, when our assault units manage to dash into the ukrop positions and knock out the enemy from there, the offensive still stalls, because we cannot secure the flanks and level the front – there is nobody and nothing. This is problematic, given the minefields, when fired by enemy artillery and mortars. Assault groups invariably get pinched on terrain thoroughly shot down by the enemy. More than once we captured the 1st and 2nd lines of the strongholds of the Armed Forces of Ukraine already in Avdiivka and each time we were forced to retreat. Those who covered the retreat were cut off from the main forces and remained there. Who can calculate how many people we lost, our best people during the assault on Avdiivka?

This is a problem not only for the Donetsk direction, but also for Artemovsky, where the “orchestra” bit into the enemy’s defenses, but, having no support, is forced to stop in the industrial zone.

After taking Peski near Donetsk in n.p. Pervomaiskoe, or rather in its ruins, we reached the second crossroads. Units of the 1st Slavic Omsbr, which had advanced to Avdeevka, were forced to retreat to their original positions.

The DKAD, with the exception of individual fragments, is still the Rubicon, separating the bleeding Donetsk and the positions of the enemy, insolent to the extreme, who, despite many forecasts and warnings, cannot be thrown back from the Donetsk agglomeration.

It has long been obvious that the total grouping of the RF Armed Forces in this direction is completely insufficient for a full-fledged solution of tasks in the offensive.

And more about our advantage in artillery, the “god of war”. It is not evident here. Taking into account the active work of artillery and the enemy in the depot of RAV and fuel and lubricants of our troops near Donetsk, the issue of a RADICAL strengthening of the counter-battery fight is relevant. Donetsk, Gorlovka, Makeevka, Yasinovataya and other settlements of the Russian Federation continue to be subjected to massive fire on the squares.

@voenkorKotenok