Fall of Avdiivka: The Rise of Russian Airpower

Russian mastery over the skies of Eastern Ukraine compel a rout in Avdiivka. Is the cautious war of attrition phase in Ukraine abating and a dynamic war of manoeuvre about to erupt?

After more than a decade of failure, Russian forces finally captured the daunting fortress of Avdiivka—Ukraine’s most formidable strongpoint along the entire front line. An industrial suburb of Donetsk, pre-war Avdiivka was home to a modest 32,000 people. But since its capture by Ukrainian forces from the pro-Russian separatist movement in the aftermath of the 2014 coup d'état in Kiev, Avdiivka has been the source of countless artillery attacks by Ukrainians on civilians in Donetsk. Ten years of frustration ensued as pro-Russian separatists, and then the Russian army itself, failed to make any headway.

Russian forces launched their latest offensive against Avdiivka in mid-October. There were a few breakthroughs along the way, but on February 16th the town fell suddenly and catastrophically. As Ukrainian President Zelensky highlights, it is a sign of an increasingly unfair fight between Russia and Ukraine. The deciding factor that turned a decade of stalemate into a sudden rout was Russia’s ability to establish air superiority over the surrounding areas in the Donbass. Free from the threat of Ukrainian air defense, Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) launched hundreds of extremely powerful and accurate glide bombs: the FAB-500, 1000 and 1500. The number signifies the weight of the bomb in kilograms. By comparison, a standard 152mm Russian artillery shell weighs around 80 kilograms. It’s far easier to pulverize powerful fortifications with huge glide bombs than it is to nickel and dime them with artillery. There are reports that the VKS dropped more than a hundred FAB glide bombs in the week leading up to the Ukrainian retreat.

ISW is extremely hostile to Russia and this is their first post in living memory that approaches the truth.

Other contributing factors to Ukraine’s defeat include their dearth of artillery shells, a shortage of manpower along with plunging morale which reduces the effectiveness of the limited available soldiers, and the advent of Russian electronic warfare superiority which has cut down the effectiveness of Ukraine’s fleet of FPV drones.

A week before Avdiivka’s fall, newly-appointed Ukrainian Commander General Syrsky sent from his reserves the once-elite Third Assault Brigade—formerly known as the Azov Brigade—in an attempt to free encircled Ukrainian troops. There are conflicting reports about the Third refusing orders as they approached Avdiivka. It’s likely that a portion of the force was surrounded by the Russians and were killed or captured—the rest of the Brigade seems to have fled. Once word of the elite forces refusing battle spread, a general panic ensued among normal Ukrainian troops, who started withdrawing west in small packets. This was an unordered retreat, forcing General Syrsky to eventually reclaim his lost command by officially announcing a withdrawal, which in reality was already mostly completed, and had started against his wishes.

Ukraine’s Presidential spokesman Andriy Yermak, while attending the Munich Security Summit, succinctly states the problems Ukrainian forces are facing:

Who’s to Blame?

Currently in the US, Republicans in the House are blamed for the fall of Avdiivka. These MAGA partisans are refusing to rubber stamp a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine. The subtext is that the US could resupply Ukraine with arms but is only unable to do so due to vibrant political debate in Congress. It conjures images of hangars full of air defense missiles and 155mm artillery shells neatly stacked on pallets just gathering dust. The implicit idea is that if Republicans in the House finally give their OK, it will activate the loading of transport planes and soon weapons reinforcements will be air bound towards bases in Poland. The truth is the US has depleted its available stocks of air defense missiles and artillery shells. Ukraine will get financial aid if this package ever passes—but few weapons. Bushels of printed dollar bills do nothing to stop a Russian Iskander missile heading towards rear-area Ukrainian troop concentrations.

The sad reality is that NATO’s military industrial production lags that of Russia by a 7:1 margin according to Asia Times journalist David P. Goldman. As explained in my piece Primal Parity, this is a natural result of bifurcations between production and finance that occur within capitalist accumulation cycles. Most NATO nations are in a financial phase where production is offshored to zones of cheaper labor, since capital always seeks the highest rate of profit. US and EU arms manufactures are not motivated to invest in domestic plant expansion.

Europeans arms production boils down to grandiose announcements by keen politicians that Europe will provide a million artillery shells, a million drones, form an air defense missile coalition, but as the announced deadlines approach, very little if anything is provided. Europeans have been shuttering heavy industry for years due to ecological concerns. Recent ruptures of cheap energy flows from Russia have in particular devastated German industry. Europe’s post-industrial service economies are not going to suddenly turn on a dime and revamp into arms production super powers.

Things are different in the Russian Federation. Having inherited a robust military industrial infrastructure from the production-oriented Soviet Union, Russia has greatly increase arms production since the outbreak of the Ukraine War. Thanks to Western sanctions, Russia is transitioning to a state-capitalist model where the government leads investment in order to ensure sufficient amounts of arms production to meet war demand. Culturally, while large metropolises like Moscow and St. Petersburg have largely embraced bourgeois economic practises, in the smaller towns and rural regions, a proletariat ethos still reigns over the cultural realm to a much larger extent than in the EU or US.

Paradoxically, nations that celebrate their capitalist economies generally refuse to embrace capitalism as an object of study. The works of Fernand Braudel, Giovanni Arrighi and Karl Marx, all three who devoted their lives to the study of capitalism, are rarely read in the US and EU. The knowledge these authors impart could have helped Western leaders avoid the current production shortfalls.

Nevertheless, for America’s global image, it’s better to blame the fall of Avdiivka on vibrant political debate than to highlight the US inability to meet Ukraine’s weapons requirements. In the current case, the message sent is that the US only lacks the will to send weapons. Without this Congressional blockage, the US would have been exposed as being incapable of meeting it’s proxy’s needs. As of today, an image of potential US strength is maintained, while the reality of US weakness would have been exposed without the Congressional deadlock.

The lack of US aid did undoubtedly contribute to a drop in morale among both Ukrainian soldiers and its leadership class. A more cynical view of this cut-off of US aid is that senior American officials have decided the war is a lost cause and its continuation contrary to the interests of the United States. The partisan bickering surrounding the aid cut-off is intended to put the best face on a US push to force Ukraine into peace talks. As always, the narrative-masters in the Administration deploy a good cop / bad cop trope to camouflage the real dynamics of the situation.

Breaking Point?

The rapidity with which Ukrainian lines broke suggests that the war may be entering a new phase. This possibility is amplified by the strength of the heavily-fortified defensive positions in Avdiivka, which in the end tumbled so easily. In the back of the minds of Ukrainian defenders elsewhere will be the fear that if Avdiivka cannot hold off the heavily superior Russian forces—in terms of arms, training and morale, if not raw numbers—then where can this juggernaut be stymied? The next Ukrainian fortress for Russian troops to storm is Chasiv Yar on the heights west of Bakhmut. Given that there is an active debate about how strong Chasiv Yar’s fortifications actually are, a future Russian victory there will not be as meaningful as Avdiivka.

Once Chasiv Yar is captured, the next fortifications run along the line of Konstiantynivka - Kramatorsk - Sloviansk. That is the last line of Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbass. Once the Russians smash their way through this line, Ukrainian forces will fall towards towns on the way to the Dnieper River. Eastern Ukraine is the economic heart of Ukraine and its loss will be fatal to their future as a viable independent state.

The other remaining stronghold is Vuhledar (Ugledar). This small fortress has been the scene of much frustration and death for Russian forces trying to storm it. The tiny conglomeration consists of mostly reinforced concrete high-rises. Russia has been conducting aerial raids in recent days, dropping their huge gliding FAB-bombs on Ugledar. Russia is also pushing forward in the Marinka area north of Ugledar, with the hope of cutting the supply lines to the tiny fortress.

There are reports of a large gathering of Russian forces in the south along the Zaporizhzhia direction, scene of Ukraine’s failed summer offensive. Some reports claim that 50,000 Russian troops are gathering for offensive operations. All battle reports so far indicate modest positional skirmishes. At the same time there are persistent rumours of a large scale Russian offensive from the north. Some reports indicate the Russians will extend the front by invading into Ukraine towards Sumy along the Russian border. An offensive launched to the east of Sumy could cut off the vital city of Kharkov from the rest of Ukraine.

Another possibility is a large push towards Kupiansk, also in the north. President Zelensky visited this city in the days following Ukraine’s defeat at Avdiivka, reportedly to ask the commander how much longer he can hold out.

President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the battalion command post of the 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which is engaged in the northeastern Kupiansk sector, the Presidential Office said on Feb. 19.

Kupiansk, a crucial logistics juncture that was temporarily occupied by Russia in 2022, is coming under renewed pressure by Moscow's troops.

According to the Presidential Office, Zelensky listened to a report from the brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Oleksii Trubnikov. The two discussed ammunition and other supplies for the soldiers, Russia's use of drones, and ways to counter them using electronic warfare means.

Russian strategists will try to stretch the Ukrainian lines as thin as possible, keeping their enemy guessing about where to deploy any meagre reserves they still possess. Pushing on the two extremities—north and south—could allow Russian forces to launch a central attack out of newly captured Avdiivka.

The onslaught of Russian airpower is not limited to the front lines. Russia has conducted, with its vast array of cruise and ballistic missiles, an impressive SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) campaign. Many Western systems and missile stockpiles were destroyed. Given the frailty of Western missile production and the spread of conflicts in the Middle East, there are no new air defense supplies in the pipeline for Ukraine anytime soon. Russian airpower has been free to conduct strikes in Ukraine’s operational rear, hitting command and control, ammunition stocks, troop dormitories and military industrial critical infrastructure—as well as prioritizing any surviving Ukrainian air defense assets. Slowly but surely Ukrainian defensive capabilities are being hollowed out.

In Quelling the Fire, I described that when a defensive line crumbles suddenly, it can undergo a process similar to what a steel beam goes through as it fails:

Armies along a front line behave like structural beams. Constant loading on a beam induces small deflections as well as strain and fatigue. Gradually increasing force upon the beam leads to small incremental movements. Eventually though, if enough force is added, the beam will reach the point of plasticity. Catastrophe quickly follows as any additional force produces dangerous bending and eventual collapse. This is Russia’s goal in Ukraine, to induce the Ukrainian armed forces into a state of plasticity where Ukraine will either be forced to sue for peace or watch their armies collapse allowing the Russians free reign to occupy any areas they wish.

Avdiivka is a bellwether. As the cornerstone of Ukraine’s Donbass defensive line, until Russia was strong enough to storm it, then there was no reason for Ukraine to consider peace talks. But now Ukrainian troops will be desperately trying to establish new defense lines to the west. In the previous Russian victories—Mariupol, Lysychansk and Bakhmut, the weaker Russian offensive potential had reached its culminating point and had no further steam to move forward. To be fair in the case of Mariupol moving forward would have been into the Azov Sea. It remains to be seen if Russia can profit from a temporary gap in Ukrainian defensive lines and push forward from Avdiivka.

With the Dnieper River now in reach, with Ukrainian defensive lines getting pummelled by an increasingly dominant Russian air force, the losses may soon accelerate to a fast and furious tempo. The slow and grinding war of attrition may soon be coming to an end as Russian commanders may conclude that they have undermined enough Ukrainian defensive capability to permit larger “big arrow” offensives. The goal will be to grab territory as peace talks loom in the background.

200 Years of Western Failure in Russia

While it is possible the Ukrainians and Russians could come to terms, it is hard to see why Russia would be in any hurry to do so. But a larger question remains, what will the West’s policy towards Russia be in the coming decade after any eventual peace deal is signed? If the past 200+ years are any guide, the West’s hostility to Russia will remain the same.

Anglo-American power has been on the geopolitical attack against Russia for more than 200 years. Over and over again, it tries the same recipe of policy, and ends up in complete failure each time. During the 18th century, Britain had good trade relations with Russia. After devastating their own forests, Britain quickly became dependent on Russian timber for naval construction. A mutually beneficial trade relationship prospered. However the shear size of Russia, combined with its insatiable appetite for new colonial possessions, meant sooner or later the British Empire would feel threatened.

As the 18th century drew to a close, the Ottoman Empire was in the early stages of its collapse. Russia benefitted by grabbing ports on territory in today’s Ukraine. The Russian naval victory after the Siege of Ochakov, where they captured a vital port near the Black Sea, drove British foreign policy hawks to plan an intervention against Russia. Calmer heads prevailed and a few decades later Russia destroyed Napoleon’s Grande Armée, handing victory to Britain in the Napoleonic Wars.

By the 1830’s, Russophobia was once again spreading in Britain as the continued decline of the Ottoman’s stoked irrational fears that one day Russia would march up over the Himalayas and down into India, stealing the crown jewel of Britain’s colonial possessions. Orlando Figes, in his book The Crimea War, describes the forerunner to today’s thinktank publications: pamphlets written to stir the British government to action against the rising Russian menace:

Orlando Figes from his book, The Crimea War

Each and every one of these policies has been put into action during the 21st century and yet Russia is emerging stronger than ever:

1. The Western sanctions packages were designed to create an oligarchic reaction to overthrow Putin. The opposite happened as Western seizures of Russian oligarchic treasure forced them back to Russia, where their capital is now reinvested into the national economy instead of fuelling conspicuous consumption on the Cote d’Azur or London.

2. One of the rare areas of Ukrainian success in the current war has been their use of naval drones to sink several Russian Navy vessels. Of course these actions are propaganda victories only, the current war is a land struggle.

3. Ukraine has attempted several landings on the Crimean Peninsula.

4. Western intelligence agencies have for decades financed Islamist resistance groups in Chechnya and Dagistan.

5. NATO has expanded into Finland.

6. The recently deceased Alexei Navalny was no doubt financed by the West, probably by Germany. The Germans had great success in undermining Russia by sponsoring Lenin and his Bolsheviks in the early 20th century. Their ultra nationalist and xenophobic agent Navalny, whose ideological goal was to break off from the Russian Federation all non-Russian areas, met with no success.

7. Ukraine has had minor success in bombarding both Moscow and St. Petersburg via long-range drone attacks.

8. Arms are indeed being sent to Poland and Finland but currently Ukraine is the border between Russia and the West, and arms flows to Ukraine have depleted Western supplies.

Moving Forward

Russia’s capture of Avdiivka was overshadowed in the West by the death of Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison. Western geopolitical detectives, who after 18 months are still totally stumped by the Nord Stream bombing, rushed to judgement in proclaiming Putin as guilty. The Russians on their part seem to be blaming Navalny’s sudden death on his four Pfizer vaccines.

Navalny was Russia's version of Bibi Netanyahu in the sense that he wanted to treat Muslims in Russia's Caucasus regions like Palestinians. His Western-inspired goal as an ultra Russian nationalist was to break Russia-proper away from the non-Russian areas. Balkanizing the huge Russian Federation has long been an Anglo-American pipedream.

The problem for the Biden Administration is that they too are in the process of jailing the leading US opposition leader, Donald Trump. And what happens if he is found dead in his prison cell a few months later? Granted there is a major age difference between Navalny and Trump, but the optics will not be great. This administration should be treading carefully on Navalny since they do not want to be setting precedents for the day Trump dies in jail.

The choice of Navalny along with the continuation of 19th century-style hostility towards Russia will soon be confirmed as an abject failure once Ukraine and Russia come to terms. In hindsight, the best potential agent of Russian destruction was placed in power in 1999: Vladimir Putin. Putin wanted to integrate Russia into the Western world. Instead the West executed a full-court press towards Russia’s vulnerable geopolitical sphere of influence, and in doing so, rudely reversed Putin’s pro-Western orientation.

In an alternative universe, brighter minds in the West would have backed off on the geopolitical hijinks and instead concentrated on suckering Russia into joining the neoliberal consumerist European mindset. US-led prosperity has turned Europe from a continent of warriors into effete eco-consumers. Had the West followed the path of co-option, Russia today would be as fat and happy and militarily useless as our European allies are. Russia’s vast reserves of natural resources would be available to the West. Instead Russia is a powerful member of the growing multipolar block of nations seeking to overturn the US global order.