Rybar lost the plot altogether yesterday. There’s not the slightest indication that the Russians passed the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk railway, which is an important Ukrainian defense line and whose crossing is essential in order to attempting to flank the city from the north-east. After that they would have to take Stepove. And according to Rybar they had already captured Berdychi and were moving towards Semenivka. Yeah…

Military Informant (a major Russian Telegram channel) wrote of “significant successes” but denied any breakthrough, let alone a closing of the “cauldron”. Voin_dv, which is usually an objective channel when it doesn’t have to make apologia for the Eastern Military District’s failures (which isn’t involved in Avdiivka), denied any breakthrough and wrote only of a few advances to the north-east, with the Ukrainians putting up very tenacious resistance. In its view the Russian artillery barrage (along with the massive use of FABs) was extremely impressive (no doubt about that), but let’s remember that Russian artillery is less successful in Avdiivka compared to elsewhere as the Ukrainians rely on a very branched and solid network of tunnels where they rest and keep their supplies - the Avdiivka Coke Plant that was targeted by FABs was built on the model of Azovstal, there are shelters made in the Cold War to specifically withstand a nuclear war.

Ukrainian sources wrote of slight advances by the Russians in the north-east flank (with the loss of several tactical positions) and no progress at all in the southern one. What is likely is that the Russians advanced a few hundred meters towards the railway from Krasnohorivka and that is. Yesterday’s attack was in any case repulsed in its initial intentions. Certain Russians did a lot of hype yesterday and a lot of Western media for some reason took the bait. In March they had launched a bigger and more successful offensive (taking Krasnohorivka and Vesele) which was then halted. Since then, unlike in the past, they have been trying to push more from Novoselivka Druha than from Opytne, whose area has extremely ramified Ukrainian fortifications. The Ukrainian grouping in Avdiivka is good and also larger than in the past. There are no reports of considerable Russian reinforcements in the sector, which had indeed been weakened by the transfer of units of the 3rd Corps to Bakhmut. Avdiivka has been a meat grinder for the Russians, by far on the podium of the bloodiest fronts for them. It has been the grave of many of the best units of the former DPR.