Two militaries. Two different kinds of air power.

As the four-month battle for the ruins of Avdiivka

culminates, the Ukrainian and Russian militaries are pummeling each other from the air. The difference is
that the Ukrainians are flinging thousands of tiny drones at Russian troops assaulting the city. The
Russians are lobbing, from manned warplanes, hundreds of powerful glide-bombs. The disparity isn’t
perfect. Yes, the Ukrainians have manned warplanes, too, And the Russians have drones.

But Ukrainian air power over Avdiivka overwhelmingly is robotic air power, while Russian air power over
the city mostly is the traditional manned kind. The reasons for the radically different approaches to aerial
bombardment speak the most important battlefield dynamics as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds
into its third year. In short, the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition for their artillery and air-
defense batteries. In the absence of artillery ammo, they’re launching drones, instead.

Meanwhile, the worsening fragility of Ukraine’s air-defenses practically is an invitation to the Russian air
force to sortie its most powerful fighter-bombers—and drop its most powerful aerial bombs. As recently
as late summer, Ukrainian artillery batteries were firing as many shells as Russian batteries were.
Ukrainian brigades didn’t advance terribly far during their summer offensive, but we largely can attribute
whatever gains they did make to that firepower parity.

Meanwhiles, Ukraine is reinforcing Avdiivka, And there are good reasons to believe it’s bolstering the
eastern city—current the locus of Russia’s winter offensive—with one of the best brigades in the
Ukrainian army. The 3rd Assault Brigade. The only Ukrainian ground-combat brigade that we know for
sure was in reserve in eastern Ukraine as of last week. Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of
the Tavriya group of forces in Avdiivka, announced the reinforcement on Telegram on Saturday.

“We strengthen the blocking line, set up additional firing positions and use fresh effective forces,”
Tarnavskyi wrote. “Logistical delivery continues.” That the Ukrainians would reinforce Avdiivka was not a
foregone conclusion. In apparently choosing to stay and fight, Ukrainian forces are accepting enormous
risk. After four months of hard fighting, Russian troops from the 2nd and 41st Combined Arms Armies
finally breached Avdiivka—a key Ukrainian stronghold just five miles northwest of Russian-occupied
Donetsk—earlier this month and approached within a few hundred yards of the main road by which the
Ukrainian garrison, centered on the 110th Mechanized Brigade, gets supplies into the city.

At that point, Tarnavskyi had two options, Pull back the 110th Brigade’s survivors from the exposed
eastern part of the city and consolidate the Ukrainian line in central Avdiivka or just outside the city, to
the west. Or: reinforce the 110th Brigade and try to push the much larger Russian force away from the
garrison’s supply lines. It’s possible it wasn’t Tarnavskyi’s decision to make. Last week, Ukrainian
president Volodymyr Zelensky removed his popular top general, the charismatic Valery Zaluzhny, and
replaced him with the unpopular former head of the ground forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Zaluzhny has a reputation—deserved or not—for embracing a mobile defense in order to minimize
Ukrainian casualties. Syrskyi by contrast has a reputation—again, deserved or not—for accepting high
casualties in stubborn, static fights. It’s possible that, in promoting Syrskyi, Zelensky signaled his
intention to fight for Avdiivka. Even at high cost. In any event, it seems fresh Ukrainian forces have
arrived in the now-lifeless ruins of the once thriving industrial city with a pre-war population of 30,000.

Their first and most obvious task is to relieve pressure on the main paved east-west road into central
Avdiivka, Hrushevsky Street. There are other, less passable roads into Avdiivka, but Hrushevsky is critical.
“The intention of the Russian aggressors is clear: they first of all want to establish control over the
logistical means of providing our units on the northern flank,” Tarnavskyi wrote. “However, we give an
adequate response to the actions of the enemy.” That “adequate response” could include the
deployment of elements of the 3rd Assault Brigade. The unit since December has been in reserve in
Kramatorsk, 50 miles north of Avdiivka.

The 2,000-person brigade fought one of the last winning battles of Ukraine’s 2023 offensive and
liberated the town of Andriivka, 25 miles north of Avdiivka. The victory earned the year-old brigade an
opportunity to rest, retrain, recruit new soldiers and, if rumors are true, re-equip with American-made
M-2 fighting vehicles. “How is February of the 3rd Assault going?” brigade trooper Egor Sugar wrote.
“Only in training, and only hardcore. Regular training, range training and active preparation for new
attacks against the occupiers continue.”