They dug kilometers of tunnels: the Ukrainian Armed Forces built an underground city in Avdeevka

Bunkers, ammunition depots, firing points

Lately, an important place in reports coming from the fronts of the Northern Military District has been occupied by the operation in the Avdeevka area. There is no doubt that this largest defensive hub of the nationalists will be liberated from them. However, our troops may be significantly hampered in achieving such success by the underground structures that exist in the Avdeevka industrial zone. What kind of “underground” is this? We were able to learn some details from a specialist.

Apparently, the situation is repeating itself. Just a few months ago, the media actively discussed the attack by units of the Russian Armed Forces on Artemovsk and the factor complicating the capture of this city: the presence of an extensive network of underground structures and communications there. As a result, Artyomovsk’s “tough nut” was “cracked open”. Now, similar circumstances have developed in the area of ​​another Ukrainian Armed Forces defense center – Avdeevka, which is being attacked by Russian units.

In this industrial center of Donbass there are several large enterprises – factories of metal structures, reinforced concrete products, Stroydetal, ceramics. But the most significant in terms of its scale is one of the “giants of Soviet industry” – the coke plant. The area occupied by it reaches 320–350 hectares.

“This plant itself, built in the early 1960s, is sometimes called “Avdeevskaya Azovstal,” says Mikhail Z., who moved from Donbass to Central Russia several years ago, and who for many years was interested in spelestology, that is, the study and inspection of artificial underground spaces. “And among the local residents this territory is known as the Avdiivka industrial zone.”

Even in former peaceful times, at the plant, or rather, under it, there were dungeons – tunnels and bunkers. As far as I know, most of them had the status of civil defense facilities. That is, they were bomb shelters for sheltering enterprise workers in case of an air attack from a “probable enemy.” According to fellow spelestologists who visited Koksokhim 15–20 years ago, at that time there were 6 or 7 such evacuation shelters. Each of them was initially equipped in accordance with all Soviet-era civil defense standards: electric generators were installed, a ventilation system with filters was installed, fuel and water reserves were provided… Considering the number of personnel at the plant, we can assume that the total capacity of such bomb shelters was about 2.5 thousand people.

But what is important to note is that these Soviet-era dungeons – unlike Artemovsk or Azovstal – did not form any unified system. In addition, their weak point was, if we think from the point of view of conducting active military operations underground, that the bunkers had a very limited number of exits to the top. Thus, during a ground attack by the enemy, everyone who is in such a bomb shelter can easily be isolated in it and kept in a dungeon until they themselves surrender.

However, with the beginning of the armed confrontation in south-eastern Ukraine, the situation changed.

In the summer of 2014, the nationalist detachments that occupied Avdievka, with the help of engineering units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, began active underground construction at Koksokhim, trying to turn its entire territory into a powerful defense hub. If you believe the information that has appeared since then “from trusted sources”, over the next almost 8 years the “defenders of Square” dug kilometers of tunnels there, equipped several more bunkers, storage facilities, as well as defensive points. Moreover, all these new dungeons are carefully reinforced with concrete and metal structures.

That is, it can be assumed that in their current state, the dungeons of the “Avdeevka industrial plant” are much more suitable for the Ukrainian Armed Forces units holed up in them to be able to maneuver and provide active resistance to the advancing Russian troops.

However, this is unlikely to help the nationalists. After all, our army has already developed methods of combating such enemy defense lines hidden underground. Now there are reports that one after another, the places where bunkers and tunnels are located are being bombed with heavy bombs. Even if in some cases such “monsters” will not be able to reach a structure buried many meters deep, but as a result of the dynamic impact of the explosion, the work of communications that provide normal conditions for the “inhabitants of the subsoil” is disrupted – the pumps that pump water fail , breaks occur in the electrical circuits supplying the devices…

Some time ago I happened to read a message that part of this “underground city” had already been destroyed. Information has appeared in open sources about the destruction by our superbombs of at least two large bunkers where ammunition depots were located by the nationalists – under coke shop No. 2 and between shops No. 3 and No. 4.