On Saturday, a U.S.-based think tank called the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released maps showing Ukrainian gains as Russia tries to take Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.
Bakhmut has seen some of the most violent warfare since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Eastern European nation has responded to the Russian military’s advances with a more robust defense than anyone anticipated, helped by aid from the West.
The ISW reports that Ukrainian forces moved forward toward Bakhmut’s southern flank. The think tank cited posts on Russian military blogs which stated that Ukrainian forces had made progress along the forest line north of Klishchiivka, roughly 4 miles southwest of Bakhmut, a regional hub with highways leading to strategic cities in the Donbas like Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
Russian soldiers kept up their attacks north and south of Bakhmut, although there were no confirmed or claimed gains. According to the ISW, however, they did manage to push near Avdiivka in the Donbas region.
On Saturday, the ISW quoted a Russian military blogger saying that Kyiv had launched a counterattack against Moscow’s advances near the railway north of Avdiivka. Friday’s geolocated video shows Russian troops in the southern axis maintaining frontline positions south of Chervone in Zhytomyr Oblast.
Russian forces have lost a lot of men trying to encircle Avdiivka, which is the main road leading into Donetsk.
In a phone call with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov reportedly updated him on October 28 with the news that Russia had lost roughly 4,000 men in the battle of Avdiivka. This was reported in a Telegram post from the Ukrainian defense ministry.
In a separate Facebook post on Saturday, the Ukrainian armed forces said that Russian forces had carried out “sneak attacks” on 26 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia area, shooting at members of the 128th brigade and “resulted in the deaths of servicemen and various degrees of injuries to local inhabitants.”
