For anyone who’s been following along, Russia should have been able to take Avdivka over a year ago. For it to have taken this long really says everything. If this is a “turning point” in the war, there is still quite a lot of room for optimism.
Thanks for injecting much needed levity into this otherwise grim situation.
This assessment assumes that gaining territory is the only thing that matters in warfare, which is the kind of assessment you make if you’ve never studied warfare.
What matters is not that Ukraine fell back from Avdiivka, it’s what it cost Putin to take it. In other words, you can win a war by losing ground if you do it right. Russia should know this well; its how they beat the Nazis.
Ukraine’s offensives tend not to see serious movement at the moment because when they meet strong resistance they back off. The Russians, on the other hand, hurl themselves into strong resistance over and over, at a huge cost in men and materiel. Essentially Ukraine is pursuing a strategy of allowing the Russians to grind themselves to death against their defences, while launching probing counterattacks to test the remaining strength of the Russian defences, never over-committing to the attack so as to minimise their own losses.
This strategy is effective because attacking a defensive position is always more costly and difficult than defending. Ukraine wants Russia to be on the attack, because that’s where they can apply attrition most efficiently.
Given that Russia has massive artillery superiority over Ukraine as well as dominating the air, it’s pretty clear whom the attrition benefits in this war. Russia didn’t just rush Avdiivka out of the blue. They were putting pressure all across the front for many months now because they have more troops and more equipment as even western media now admits. This forced Ukraine to run their increasingly depleted reserves around to plug holes, and eventually there was going to be a collapse in the front. This is what we’re seeing in Avdiivka right now. This wasn’t an ordered retreat. This was a disorganized rout of Ukrainian forces in the area leaving wounded and equipment behind. Even western media is admitting this:
