DRUZKIVKA, Ukraine — The long-standing strongholds of Ukraine’s defenses in the east have come under intense attack in recent days, according to the Ukrainian military and Western military analysts. That Ukrainian soldiers still hold the maze of trenches and fortifications in two suburban towns, Avdiivka and Pisky, on the edge of Donetsk city, is a testament to the value of their dug-in positions in the east. Ukraine’s strong defensive positions have slowed the Russian army’s advance, with only two major cities, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, and a few dozen miles of land changing hands, despite thousands of soldiers killed on both sides. It was not clear exactly why attacks on the fortifications have intensified, and the attacks are an exception to a general reduction in Russian attacks in the eastern Donbas region, which has been the focus of the war for months. Some military analysts believe the relative calm was partly a result of Russian forces being diverted south to repel a Ukrainian counterattack there. The two cities, mostly ruined and destroyed, are not great prizes to be won, but if they fall, it could facilitate Russian advances towards the three major cities in the Donetsk region that remain under Ukrainian control, Bakhmut, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. The Ukrainian military and paramilitary groups built the fortifications in the two cities during eight years of low-intensity war following Russia’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine to prop up a separatist region, the Donetsk People’s Republic. Now they are among the easternmost places of Ukraine. Navigating through abandoned factories and mines, exploiting root cellars in country houses and using swamps as natural barriers, the defense lines there have withstood countless attacks. After failing to encircle Avdiivka, Russia launched direct tank attacks this week, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. The institute noted Russian propaganda videos suggesting Russian troops had overrun a position at the Butiyka coal mine ventilation shaft, which as of 2015 was the closest Ukrainian position to the city of Donetsk, a few miles from what separatists claim is the capital their. . The Ukrainian general staff said the tank attacks did not push its troops out of Avdiivka, but noted that it was a partial success, in a possible acknowledgment of the loss of the strategic and politically important post. “For days in a row now, the enemy has not given up its offensive efforts,” Ukrainian military commander of Avdiivka, Vitaliy Barabash, told Radio Liberty on Wednesday. “Everywhere is hit by artillery and air force” bombs. Soldiers representing the Donetsk People’s Republic fire a weapon on the front line near Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in June.Credit…Alessandro Guerra/EPA, via Shutterstock The Russian military has also fired on the city with rockets that spray flammable material into the air and then ignite it, creating a giant fireball. The Russian thermobaric missile system, nicknamed Heatwave, is one of the most destructive weapons in Russia’s arsenal. “People are living in horrible, inhumane conditions,” Mr Barabash said. He said about 2,000 civilians remained in Avdiivka from a pre-invasion population of about 20,000. “Every day, the city is bombed about 20 times,” he said. Overall, Russia’s campaign in the Donbass has scaled back in recent weeks after the appearance on the battlefield of the US HIMARS, the long-range missile launch system used to strike ammunition depots behind Russian lines, and the start of Ukraine’s counteroffensive around from the southern city of Kherson, according to Serhiy Grabskiy, a former Ukrainian army colonel and war commentator for Ukrainian media. Russia has diverted about 10,000 troops from the Sloviansk offensive to defend the south, he said. “Ukrainian forces have established quite effective defensive positions in Donbas in recent years,” Mr. Grabsky said in a telephone interview. The Russians “are frankly stuck in Donbass now without real success,” he said. “And they have a new headache: the south, which from the perspective of the Ukrainian armed forces is a more important strategic objective.”
