Is Syrskyi doubling down on Avdiivka?

It has been a while. Outside of Tucker Carlson, the main Ukrainian-related topics have been Syrskyi and Avdiivka. The following summarizes up my current opinion on both as of 12 February. Twitter/X did not seem like an appropriate place for this. Substack allows me to express a degree of nuance and context that would not be possible on that platform.

Early last week, before the official announcement of Syrskyi’s appointment on 8 February, most signs pointed to Ukraine withdrawing from the city. The southern portions of Avdiivka rapidly became untenable as Russia closed in on the north-south MSR. The local reporting, albeit from relatively junior Ukrainian servicemembers, seemed to indicate preparations for a pullout were underway.

After 8 February, we saw a fairly substantial public backlash against Syrskyi and it became apparent that no significant withdrawal from Avdiivka would happen in the near term. I spent the next several days looking for specific instances and witnesses to what would have amounted to Syrskyi's gross levels of micromanagement at various points during the war. Most notably at Bakhmut. I could not verify any specifics, but the second-hand accounts of Syrskyi seemed to be almost universally negative. The singular negative first hand-account could have been a result of a personality conflict but this is just an assumption on my part.

What I do know about Syrskyi is he was born in Vladimir Oblast and received his initial military education at the Moscow Higher Combined Arms School, graduating in 1986. Generationally, he entered the Soviet military at almost the same time as Surovikin. Syrskyi’s first assignment was in the Poltava region of Ukraine. He appears to have remained in Ukraine since that point; his wife is Ukrainian and they have two sons. Outside of Bakhmut, he is strongly associated with Ukrainian operations Debaltseve (2015) and Kharkiv (2022). In both of these cases, it is difficult to know exactly how much blame or credit to ascribe to him. Politically, he is said, again by second-hand sources, to be very loyal to Zelenskyy. This is not intended as a public relations puff or hit piece. There are a lot of well-respected people who are raising concerns, but a fair amount of these concerns are a result of circular reporting. There are enough unknowns that I do not have a strong opinion one way or another on Syrskyi at this time. His background may seem to suggest a measure of inflexibility, but he has also worked extensively with NATO throughout his career.

Returning to the topic of Avdiivka, I do not know for sure if Syrskyi secured his position with a promise to Zelenskyy that he would hold the city, though many others have made this implication. I also do not have a clear picture of where and how Ukraine is committing their reserves which have reportedly arrived in the area. For all we know, they could be enabling a passage of lines operation of the remaining Ukrainian forces within the city and the withdrawal could still happen in the coming days. Pro-Russian telegram channels, for their part, insist they are hitting these reserves as they are fed into the city, presumably across the open terrain to the west. It should be noted the pro-Russian audience has a habit of assuming Russian forces have effective fire control when they do not, especially at night.

Assessing how many Ukrainian troops are within Avdiivka itself is difficult. Most public figures are for the entire sector and are in the tens of thousands. I suspect the actual number in the city at any given time to be in the high hundreds to low thousands. These were probably rotated out with some frequency up until last month when Russia’s advances made the situation increasingly difficult. Much of Ukraine’s strength is probably devoted to holding the north and south “shoulders” rather than the city itself.

From a strictly military perspective, the current Ukrainian position looks untenable. Avdiivka had previously served to draw in much of Russia's offensive potential for the past few months. The defenses of the city are formidable and long-established, but they were largely oriented to the south, towards Donetsk. When the Russians broke through to the east of Avdiivka in October last year, the defensive value of the city was compromised. In October and perhaps through December and early January, it could be argued Ukraine was inflicting disproportionate attrition on the Russian attackers. Now, this argument is much harder to make.

There are, however, at least a few rational reasons why it could be in Ukraine’s interests to hold Avdiivka. The more Ukraine is forced westwards, the more likely Russia will be able to roll up the long-existing north-south defensive lines from the bottom up. Ukraine needs time to prepare for this; Avdiivka could buy this time. Syrskyi’s appointment also comes at a delicate time. Ukrainian morale at the front is not ideal and mobilization has not been effective in making up losses, particularly in infantry units. Aid from the US is being held up by the right wing of the Republican party. Symbolically, Avdiivka could become potent if Ukraine manages to hold it. Symbols are important. We often try to divest ourselves of symbols and political objectives in the interests of purely military calculations but they are all inextricably intertwined.

If the aforementioned reasons, compelled Ukraine to hold Avdiivka: a successful counterattack against the shallow northern salient, possibly in the Novoselivka Druha-Krasnohorivka sector, could do much to salvage the situation. This move would seem to be somewhat obvious and would probably be anticipated by the Russian command. Massing the required force, perhaps of size between a battalion and a brigade, could be difficult. I would be opposed to the idea of continuing to reinforce troops in the city directly unless there was no other way to gain the time necessary to complete future defensive lines behind Avdiivka.