British military intelligence writes in its daily report that Russia continues to give priority to the operation to encircle the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region. However, Russian troops have made only marginal progress at the cost of heavy losses in armored vehicles.
Trying to encircle Avdiivka from the south, the Russian 10th tank regiment, according to these data, lost most of its combat vehicles. The regiment is part of the 3rd Army Corps, the first major new formation that Russia has created to support the invasion of Ukraine since August 2022. Data from open sources show that there are problems with the discipline and morale of the military in the 3rd Army Corps – the military formation demonstrates limited combat capability, analysts say. In their opinion, the losses of the 10th Tank Regiment were probably due to tactical errors, in particular, frontal attacks, similar to the losses in other recent unsuccessful attacks by Russian armored vehicles, for example, around the city of Vugledar.
Assault actions, but without much progress, the Russians continue at Bakhmut. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine hold the city and repel numerous enemy attacks.
Military expert Roman Svitan, in an interview with The Insider, confirmed the loss of tanks and armored vehicles by Russian troops in Avdiivka and a decrease in the number of attacks in Bakhmut.
“The Russians in the Bakhmut area are exhausted. PMC Wagner was also blown away there and there will be no more offensives from Russia. The RF Armed Forces increased the number of troops in the Bakhmut area, deployed paratroopers there, but these are paratroopers only in name. These are those partially mobilized who were recruited into the landing units. Unprepared people who perform the same tasks, but not with such zeal and attacks have decreased by half. This suggests that the combat potential is declining. Now the Ukrainian troops are launching small and tactical level counterattacks in Bakhmut, but rather painful ones.
In the Avdiivka area, on the contrary, everything has doubled. The Russians brought motorized rifle units, equipment, several battalions of tanks there. But Avdiivka is a hill and there is good control for the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Russians lost, I think, a tank battalion for sure, about thirty pieces, and combat vehicles. The rout was the same as near Vgledar at one time, only near Vgledar, Russian troops marched in columns along hard roads, and near Avdiivka they tried to advance beyond Avdiivka with a wide-angle tank attack several kilometers away, but were destroyed.
Russia has increased the number of flights on Avdiivka. There is a powerful artillery shelling of the city itself, it is being demolished by planning bombs. A red zone has now been declared there and the civilian population will be forcibly removed from Avdiivka. The garrison of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is on a hill, it is held with the help of ground means, plus Avdiivka is covered by artillery, which is behind the Karlovsky reservoir. On the high western bank, it reaches Avdeevka and the Russian units that are trying to surround Avdeevka.
shelling
On the night of March 28, Russia attacked Ukraine with Shahed 136/131 strike drones and guided aerial bombs. This is reported by the Air Force of Ukraine. According to these data, the attack was carried out from the northern and southeastern directions. Su-35 fighters took off from the Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region and attacked the Kherson region with two guided aerial bombs. In total, according to updated data, Russia used 15 Shahed-136/131 kamikaze drones, 14 of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defense, one reconnaissance UAV "Granat-4" and two KAB.
As for aerial bombs, both the Ukrainian military and Russian Telegram channels claim to be expanding their use.
At about four in the morning, Russian troops shelled a hospital in the Dniprovsky district of Kherson, Suspilne Kherson reports . There were at least five explosions. One of the shells hit the building. The blast knocked out almost all the windows. There were no dead or wounded, Alexander Tolokonnikov, head of the press office of the Kherson OVA, told the publication.
Kramatorsk also came under rocket fire last night. According to the head of the Donetsk OVA Pavel Kirilenko, a kindergarten, a school and an industrial building were hit. There were no victims or injured.
Drone crashed in New Moscow
A drone fell 100 meters from the railway tracks in New Moscow, photos are published by the pro-Russian Telegram channels Baza, Shot and “Before everyone. Almost". The wreckage was found by a resident of the village of Svitino walking his dog. Shot writes that, preliminary, the UAV is homemade – made of wood and foam. Experts establish who launched it and from where, as well as what it is stuffed with.
Peskov: the war will drag on for a long time
The Guardian published an article in which two sources of the newspaper at once said that at the end of December 2022, during a festive pre-New Year dinner with the participation of high-ranking officials, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that the war would drag on for a long time.
“I think you expect me to say something. Everything will become much harder. This is a very, very long time,” Peskov said.
According to The Guardian, the dinner was held in the Moscow apartment of one of the officials. One of the guests told the newspaper that the participants in the event were upset by the words of Peskov, many of whom in private conversations said that they opposed the war in Ukraine.
In mid-March, Vladimir Putin, during a visit to an aircraft factory in Ulan-Ude, said that for the West the war in Ukraine is an opportunity to improve the geopolitical situation, and for Russia it is a struggle for the survival of Russian statehood.
Speaking to The Guardian, an unnamed Western diplomat interpreted Putin's statement as preparing Russians for "a war that never ends."
US took away drones from Crimea, intelligence suffered
The US authorities, after the loss of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone, decided to build reconnaissance drone routes at a greater distance from Crimea, which limits the ability to collect intelligence related to the war in Ukraine. This was reported to CNN by a senior US military official on condition of anonymity. Drones flying at greater distances reduce the quality of the intelligence they can gather, he said. The military official also added that spy satellites can compensate to a certain extent, but they are less over the targets, which gives lower efficiency compared to drones.
The new routes, according to CNN sources, are chosen by the US authorities in such a way as to avoid incidents that could escalate into a direct conflict with Russia.
Staged shelling
On March 27, a video appeared on Z-channels, in which an alleged soldier in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stops a car with a woman and a child. The military man forces her to speak Ukrainian with him, and then insults her, calling her a “pig” for speaking Russian. Videos quickly began to be replicated by other Z-themed channels. And later it appeared in the official Twitter account of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
It soon became clear that the video was filmed on the territory of Ukraine, which has been controlled by Russian troops since 2014. After several OSINT projects at once proved that the video was fake, it mysteriously and without explanation disappeared from the account of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The Insider on weekdays publishes daily reports with the main events of the war, about the situation on March 27 – in the material: “ The shelling of Slavyansk, explosions in Melitopol, Leopards arrived in Ukraine. What's going on at the front ."