In addition to what has already been written on the matter, Ruslan Mykula (the other co-founder of DS) reported that the Russians attacked at the junction between two battalions of the 115th Mechanized Brigade, amplifying coordination issues. Moreover, there was reportedly (yet another) case of problems and losses of positions being underreported or even not reported at all to the OSG/OTG and to the other brigades, except when the mess had already happened. That said, today’s report by the spokesman of the OSG “Khortytsia” (by the way, it’s the OSG “Tavria” which has the responsability over Avdiivka) is, unfortunately, quite detached from reality. Not only do the Russians control almost the entirety of Ocheretyne, but they are not “blocked” there either (same holds for Soloviove, unlike what he declared for this village too).

Allow me a clarification - the 46th Airmobile Brigade is not to blame for Soledar. They arrived to act as firefighters when the Russians had already broken through and they did everything they could, but the impact of the Russian onslaught was far too strong. The 128th Mountain Assault Brigade is the one to blame for the loss of positions in the eastern part of the town, which created the mess, as well as the 61st Mechanized Brigade for the initial phase of the urban battle, although by that time the situation was already compromised. In the case of these two brigades, we are not talking about new units, but if anything, about units that had yet to properly recover from Kherson.

The 100th Mechanized Brigade was transferred at the beginning of the last week. They are doing what they can between Ocheretyne and Soloviove, but things are not easy. Recently elements of the 142nd and 144th Infantry Brigades are arriving as reinforcements (I don’t know if in their entirety - at the moment I have identified the 458th and 459th Rifle Battalions of the 142nd Brigade and the 471st and 474th Rifle Battalions of the 144th Brigade as being committed in the Avdiivka sector, particularly in the Berdychi area).

As of last week it had minor elements committed in the Avdiivka sector, supporting the 68th Jager Brigade in its AO. Very interestingly, they have been mentioned for the last couple of weeks by the spokesman of the GoF “West”, in the daily bulletin of the Russian MoD, as being active in the Svatove and Kreminna sectors (Novovodyane and Terny); according to the Russian MoD, accumulations of personnel and materials allegedly belonging to them were hit in Borova (Kharkiv Oblast, rear of the Svatove sector). At first this sounded like bullshit to me, then I went to investigate on Facebook and found that, since early April, numerous crowdfunding campaigns for the 3rd Assault Brigade mentioned the “Kharkiv direction". Either alone or together with the Donetsk direction. There are posts from mid-April mentioning that the brigade had just been moved to a new sector. I don’t think it has been transferred entirely, but at this point it’s conceivable that, for some reason, elements of the 3rd AB are fighting up there.