‘The feeling is that if Avdiivka falls, it will be the fault of America’

Ukraine forces, weakened by lack of Western support, must defy the odds to stand firm in key frontline city

Even by the standards of Ukraine’s eastern front, it is slaughter on an industrial scale. Buzzing over the no man’s land outside the city of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian drone camera surveys the enemy dead. It counts 113 Russian corpses, rotting in the mud.

Such casualties have been a regular occurrence since Russian forces began their all-out assault on Avdiivka in November. According to British intelligence estimates, nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers are killed or injured there every day, making it one of the costliest battlegrounds of the two-yearlong war.

Yet despite the toll in human life, Vladimir Putin’s forces seem on the verge of taking Avdiivka. Last week, Russian troops reached the ravaged outskirts, prompting a warning from Vitality Barabash, the mayor, that the situation was “critical”.

On the face of it Avdiivka is not much of a prize. Home to about 30,000 people – most of whom have fled – it has few assets other than a Soviet-era coking plant. Instead, like Bakhmut, which Russian forces claimed at great cost last May, its value is symbolic. But if the Russians do prevail there, the narrative may no longer just be about crude Russian military might. Questions will be asked over whether Ukraine’s forces are finally weakening, their strength sapped not just by two years of punching above their weight, but by faltering Western support.

Ukrainian commanders say blocks on military aid packages in the US and EU have led to catastrophic artillery shortages at Avdiivka. In the summer, the two sides hurled shells at each other in roughly equal measure. Now, Ukrainians complain, Russian troops can fire five for every one of theirs.

“The feeling is that if Avdiivka falls, it will be the fault of America,” says Glen Grant, a former UK defence attaché and one-time adviser to Ukraine’s defence ministry. “The delays in support have been too great, the Ukrainians are running out of everything.”

The assault on Avdiivka began in October, as Ukraine’s fortunes appeared to be waning. Hoping to seize the advantage, 40,000 Russian troops attacked the city, 15 miles north of the separatist-held city of Donetsk.

At first, it was a disaster. Ukrainian troops had set up positions in the Soviet-era tower blocks, giving them vantage points over the open fields that surround the city. Russia lost more than 200 vehicles in two months.

The Kremlin switched to so-called “meat-wave” tactics: headlong charges by thousands of low-grade troops. That too did not succeed, and after losses of about 13,000 by December, it seemed the assault was petering out.

The Russians regained momentum by using drones equipped with night vision, disrupting Ukrainian supply lines that relied on cover of darkness.

The battle has involved some of Ukraine’s best troops: the 110th Mechanised Brigade, which has defended Avdiivka since the war began; and the 47th Mechanised Brigade, which spearheaded the summer counter-offensive. The combat has been constant.

“Every day there are fresh [Russian] forces, regardless of the weather, regardless of losses,” one Ukrainian soldier told Radio Free Europe. “But no matter what, they keep crawling – literally over the bodies of their own.”

But while the Russians can draw on seemingly endless reserves, many of them ex-convicts, Ukraine’s ranks are wearing thin. According to Ukrainian journalist Yuri Butusov, the 110th has been forced to draw on its vehicle engineers, some of them elderly, to defend gaps in the city’s front lines.

“Everyone who can hold a machine gun is needed,” Butusov wrote, saying many “grandfathers” had died in battle.

“The front lines generally are getting extremely thin on people, and Avdiivka is a symptom of that,” added Mr Grant. “The 110th is good but it is worn out.”

Russia also has superior numbers of : explosive-carrying drones that an operator can fly directly into a target. Footage shows them chasing soldiers across the battlefield like giant mosquitoes, before swooping down and blowing their victims to pieces.

To add insult to injury, Ukrainian troops gripe that they still have to rely largely on online donations from well-wishers to raise money to buy their drones.

Overshadowing the battle for the Donbas city are this year’s presidential races on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, a funding blockade to Ukraine is being led by Republicans sympathetic to Donald Trump, who has pledged to slash aid to Ukraine. Putin, meanwhile, wants Avdiivka as a scalp for his own voters ahead of presidential elections on March 17.

One Ukrainian fighter in the city said that morale was still strong, and that lack of Western support was only one factor. “You cannot blame only reason or person for something – it’s complex,” he said. “But, yes, if Ukraine had at least half of the ammo that Russia is using every day, we would have had a much better picture right now everywhere.”