It looks like that the pipe is even wider than the 80 centimeters originally stated. The whole thing seemed absurd, but I had wondered how was it possible that Tsarska Ohota had suddenly fallen after months of costly Russian failed assaults. For goodness sake, they were also helped by artillery, which around mid-January had pounded the entire southern part of Avdiivka. But in any case this was a fuck-up by the 110th Mechanized Brigade and in particular by its engineer battalion - there’s no way around this. It was raised in early March 2022 and since the end of that month has been deployed in Avdiivka without any “business travel” to other sectors as with many other brigades. These are not reinforcements that arrived last month. In 2022 the area where the Russians would have entered the sewer pipe (near the Skotovata ditch just south of the Avdiivka-Yasynuvata railway) was even in Ukrainian hands, and the pipe is not small. It’s really bad that no one did notice and report it, it’s an insult to the soldiers of the brigade who for months defended the former restaurant with valor and success to lose such a stronghold because of this stuff.

The news of the infiltration through the sewer pipe was firstly reported by Ukrainian sources, and now the Russians stated they knew about the tunnel for a year and have even been working to cut ventilation holes, posting that video as a evidence. They may have sent scouts, discovered the exit and then monitored it with drones over the weeks. Also, I would not rule out the possibility, which I think is plausible, that the documents proving the existence and location of this pipe could be in Donetsk, so in Russian hands for a decade.

Yes, they filled with explosives another tunnel (don’t know if it was another sewer pipe or they digged it themselves) and detonated the charges below the Ukrainian positions, in the industrial zone of Avdiivka, during the first half of November. That said Business Insider mixed Avdiivka with Andriivka, south of Bakhmut.