OREANDA-NEWS The deputy head of the People's Militia Department of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Eduard Basurin, said on Channel One that the DPR units are planning to block Avdiivka. He noted that the forces of the republic will not enter the city in order to save the lives of soldiers and civilians.

“We did not enter Avdiivka and do not plan to enter. After the city is completely blocked, after that we will sort it out,” he said.

As Basurin noted, one of the difficulties with Avdiivka is that Ukrainian soldiers are shelling Donetsk and Yasinovataya from the territory of the coking plant “in the hope that the DPR forces will destroy their artillery crews with return fire, and at the same time the coke plant will suffer.”

Also, a representative of the defense department clarified that it is not planned to enter Avdiivka to save the lives of soldiers and civilians.

Military expert Konstantin Sivkov said earlier that the Russian army, as part of a special operation, is trying to form three boilers in the area of ​​Avdiivka, Marinka and Severodonetsk in order to surround the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, in this way the Russian security forces intend to “squeeze out” the Ukrainian army from the fortified area. He noted that Russian tactics in Ukraine have changed: now, instead of one large ring, the military forms smaller boilers and “cuts off” the AFU groups, forcing them to surrender or destroy them.