As of December 26, 2023, the fighting around Avdiivka has crystallized into a cautionary case study about 21st century attrition warfare. What began in October as a concentrated mechanized push has, after heavy Russian equipment losses, hardened into repeated infantry attrition attacks that Ukrainian defenders and Western analysts alike describe as a return to “meat grinder” tactics.
Operationally the pattern is clear. Russian formations attempted large-scale mechanized assaults in October and November but suffered significant armor and vehicle losses. In response, Moscow employed massed dismounted infantry raids and small unit infiltration to seize incremental terrain and to try to exhaust Ukrainian defensive depth. This is not novelty so much as adaptation to battlefield realities: where anti-armor weapons, drones and prepared defenses make columns costly, commanders fall back on manpower to close gaps and hold ground.
The human and material cost is notable. Multiple Western and Ukrainian assessments through December reported high numbers of Russian casualties and large equipment losses in the Avdiivka sector while Ukrainian units guarded key terrain inside the town, notably the coke plant spoil-heaps and the industrial zones that dominate lines of sight into the city. Civilians have been largely displaced and the urban fabric is heavily damaged. Ukrainian defenders warn they face shortages in heavy ammunition even as they repulse waves of assaults. Those dynamics create the conditions in which manpower-heavy tactics can appear, to a Kremlin seeking symbolic gains, as a workable albeit costly option.
Technology is shaping the shape of attrition rather than replacing it. Unmanned systems and precision effects have multiplied the ways an attacker can try to suppress defenders. Ukrainian forces have used kamikaze FPV drones, counter-battery fires and cluster area munitions to blunt massed assaults and to create lethal kill zones that amplify defensive efficiency. Russian aviation and glide-bombing runs, in turn, have been used to flatten defended positions ahead of infantry probes. The interplay of drones, artillery and legacy high explosive munitions produces a bloody payoff-ratio for both sides that is hard to calculate in real time.
What is often lost in tactical accounts is the political logic. Avdiivka is both strategically awkward and symbolically valuable. For Moscow, seizing or even showing progress against a long-defended town has propaganda value and can be framed as momentum on the battlefield. For Kyiv, holding Avdiivka matters for morale and for the credibility of Western support narratives. Those political stakes push military commands toward risk acceptance: commanders who may otherwise prefer economy of force find themselves constrained by directives to hold or seize terrain. That political-military feedback loop helps explain why costly “meat grinder” patterns reappear even when their operational returns are limited.
The Avdiivka episode also exposes logistics and alliance policy risks. Ukrainian units report acute needs for 155mm ammunition, advanced air defenses and counter-battery radar if they are to sustain a long defense against repeated massed assaults supported by deep strike munitions. Delays or shortfalls in high-end munitions and strike assets degrade the defensive elasticity Kyiv needs to convert tactical resilience into operational advantage. Western supply patterns therefore exert an outsized influence on whether attritional fights like Avdiivka remain holding actions or cascade into strategic losses.
Longer term, Avdiivka is a test of whether modern firepower, unmanned systems and precision strikes can blunt the old logic of human-wave attrition or whether theory gives way to the political and organizational willingness to accept high personnel losses for marginal gains. If attrition continues to pay out in small, cumulative gains for the attacker, the battlefield will reward states that can sustain production of munitions and personnel over those that cannot. That dynamic makes industrial capacity and supply chain resilience as decisive as tactical innovation.
Policy takeaways are straightforward but grim. Donors and allies must recognize that decisive effects on the battlefield require not only weapons but timely deliveries and support for logistics, mobility and integrated air defenses. For Kyiv the choice is between an increasingly costly, symbolic defense and operationally managed withdrawals to preserve combat power for campaigns elsewhere. For Moscow the choice is between continued grinding attrition with heavy human costs and accepting limited territorial gains whose strategic value may be marginal. Either path will shape the trajectory of the conflict beyond the immediate map of trenches around Avdiivka.