If Bakhmut were a butcher's shop, Avdiivka would be a slaughterhouse. In a statement released on Monday, November 27, British intelligence estimated that Russian losses in Ukraine in recent weeks are "probably (...) the highest" since the start of the war, which began 21 months ago with its failed attempt to take Kyiv. These losses were "largely incurred as a result of the Russian offensive against the town of Avdiivka," an industrial city in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where fighting has been intensifying since early autumn.

Ukrainian forces estimate that the number of dead and wounded Russians on the frontline in general, and at Avdiivka in particular, is now averaging 931 a day. This figure is impossible to verify, but London considers it "plausible." By way of comparison, the previous "record" dates back to March, when the Russian general staff threw all its forces into the battle of Bakhmut, another industrial Donbas city, which Moscow had set as a symbolic objective. At that time, the average number of Russian soldiers put out of action was 776 per day, according to the Ukrainian army.

Military analysts point to several reasons for Russia's renewed resolve to take a largely depopulated town – Avdiivka is thought to have just a few hundred inhabitants left, compared with 30,000-35,000 before the war. The first is political. Since the capture of Bakhmut in May, Moscow's forces have not conquered a single significant town.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin needs victories in the lead-up to the next presidential election, scheduled for March. Especially if the Kremlin is to order a new wave of mobilization to re-populate the ranks of its soldiers, which is never popular. In this sense, capturing Avdiivka, which briefly fell into the hands of pro-Russian separatists in 2014, before being retaken by the Ukrainians, would have symbolic value for Moscow.

Having been put on the back foot by the Ukrainian counter-offensive launched in June, although that offensive has failed to break through enemy lines as of yet, the Russian army must regain the initiative if it is to complete the painstaking task of conquering the annexed regions. In September 2022, Putin officially annexed the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts into Russia, but these regions are still not fully occupied by his forces.

There are also tactical reasons for Russia's stubbornness. Avdiivka is located just 15 km from Donetsk, a city occupied since 2014 by pro-Russian separatists and which has become one of the symbols of the "Novorossia" ("New Russia," a term borrowed from the imperial conquests of the 18th century) championed by the Kremlin leader. Losing this city would be a major symbolic setback for Putin, who simply cannot afford to lose it.

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