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posted ago by JollyRancherHard ago by JollyRancherHard +31 / -0

This is the continuation of conversations I've had on GAW about the war in Ukraine.

The theme basically was what was actually happening and what folks wanted to happen.

I was told recently the war was going to over before Winter. Another time I was told the Russians had turned the tide.

War will be over by Winter Winter is a month away. The war will slow down then because the weather makes it very, very hard. Big operations and counter operations slow down and each side works on building up defenses. It's already started to snow occasionally in Ukraine. Barring some big settlement, which I don't see on the horizon this war will continue.

**Fighting in Avdiivka ** Avdiika is city near Donetsk, one of Regions where fighting has been going on years, even before the 2022 invasion.

This is from 2017

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-fighting-avdiivka-1.3962203

You can see from this map why this is important. https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/2307832/institute-study-war.webp?w=790&f=4c2a0678223f7cd5fe38eaa12e0fd78a

It's surrounded on three sides by Russian controlled territory, and it just into the front line. It seems like it would be easy picking, but the terrain makes it tough to take.....there's open fields around it. So attacking forces are susceptible to Ukraine's drones and long range artillery fire.

45 days ago Russia tried to take this city again. It's let to some of heaviest fighting of the war.
This post is a follow up to this discussion on GAW where I suggested following up on the situation as a reality check.

https://greatawakening.win/p/17rSjJal6H/siege-of-avdiivka-russian-forces/c/

I particularly wanted to focus on this comment by Moose Antlers https://greatawakening.win/p/17rSjJal6H/x/c/4Tz049hTMHR

He points out that *defenders have the advantage in the war right now. Which is there's so little change in territory recently. *Russia is not using air power

Ukraine's still got enough to credibly threaten Russian air power.

  • It's not going to be a city they can just take.

Russia's going to have to flatten the city.

So what's the situation today. Flattening the city seems to be on going.

Russian has failed to encircle the city. They tried at least two major offensives previously and a third began this week.

The tactics seem to be different though

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231123-russia-throwing-waves-of-men-in-battle-for-key-frontline-city

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/11/24/the-ukrainians-have-blown-up-so-many-russian-vehicles-near-avdiivka-that-the-russians-are-now-attacking-on-foot/?sh=38ab36324ca9

After losing hundreds of armored vehicles in direct assaults on Ukrainian positions in and around Avdiivka, in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, the Russian armed forces are switching to dismounted infantry assaults.

This is similar to the wave assaults Russia used to take Bahkmut,. It's an extremely costly way to fight a war. It took them months to take Bahkmut and according to some analysts degraded their war fighting capability....the biggest issue may have been the split with Wagner who made up the human wave assaults.

The losses at Avdiivka are said to be similar to the losses at Bakhmut. On the worst day of fighting Russia was supposed to have lost 1,400 soldiers in a single day with many of them at Avdiivka.

Russia has recently lost some territory in Bakhmut.

As I said last month, even if they take Avdiivka, it will be very costly and this war will be going on next year.