Additional details of Grek’s death come in an interview with a separatist source in the Russian Interfax news agency, reporting that he died during a large-scale battle with Ukrainian forces, supposedly including members of the far-right nationalist organization Pravy Sektor (Right Sector). Almost the entire article is worth highlighting, as it shows one of the early versions of the separatist account of the events of January 29:

“Today while repelling the enemy attack, which included the participation of fighters from the terrorist organization “Pravy Sektor,” the battalion commander of the Armed Forces of the DNR with the codename “Grek” died heroically. The battalion commander personally led one of the division while repelling the Ukrainian punishers’ attack. As a result of the battle, Grek’s division drove the enemy back to their original positions. In this battle, the enemy suffered substantial losses due to the skilled actions of Grek’s division: fifteen dead and more than twenty wounded. (…) Moreover, the enemy fired at themselves from Pravky Sektor positions. As a result of this friendly fire, the punishers suffered additional losses: five dead and more than ten wounded.” (source) (archive)

This is a dramatic narrative of the events of January 28–29, with massive Ukrainian casualties, incompetence from friendly fire, and no mention of any separatist casualties other than Grek. How does this narrative match up with other accounts of the fighting, both from Ukrainian forces and journalists, and other separatist sources?

Competing narratives in Avdiivka

While the anonymous separatist source speaking to Interfax claims that at least twenty Ukrainian soldiers died during the overnight fighting, this number also comes boasting about the “heroic death” of Grek, so is inherently suspect. As we saw in the case of a Ukrainian fighter from Pravy Sektor in a previous DFRLab piece, narratives of soldiers’ deaths are often exaggerated, multiplying the number of enemy soldiers they take down with them.

Ukrainian version

On Monday, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said that five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another nine were wounded on January 29, and another two were killed and five injured on the 30th. The bulk of these casualties were in Avdiivka.

The Ukrainian Novoye Vremya (The New Times) news site compiled official and unofficial versions of the first and second day (January 29 and 30) of fighting in Avdiivka. Both versions agree with the primary narrative that separatist forces launched an attack to seize the Promzone early in the morning, but Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade repelled the attack. Per the official version of January 29, from Ukrainian officials, the following events took place:

At around 5am, the occupants [separatists] began intensive shelling in the area of the Avdiivka (Kamenka and Krutaya Balka) Promzone. Small arms, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades were used in the attack. After two hours, they decided to lead an assault to seize positions from the ATO forces. It should be noted that the exact same tactics of hybrid warfare were used in the Svilotdarsk Bulge [note: see previous DFRLab piece on this incident here], when they [separatists] suffered a crushing defeat. The enemy attacked with two groups of 25–30 people. Ukrainian soldiers conducted a counterattack, and did not only stop the attack on Avdiivka, but also took important, strategic positions. However, this did not completely stop the fighters: the continued shelling, however they dared not attack. At 1:45pm after the shelling of the Ukrainian positions from rocket-propelled grenades of various caliber, the occupants [separatists] made a fresh attempt to drive out the ATO forces from the positions in the Avdiivka area (Butovka Mine from the Spartak direction). But yet again, the assault turned out unsuccessful for the fighters. The enemy was forced to retreat.

In sum, the battles lasted about 19 hours on January 29. Furthermore, one Ukrainian official claims that nine separatist fighters were killed, one was taken prisoner, and about twenty-four were wounded (seven seriously). Another official from the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO) claims that 15 were killed, 24 wounded.

The unofficial version gathered by Novoe Vremya is not too different than the official one, but provides additional details, including that the battle was between the 100th Brigade of the DNR (which Grek led a battalion for) and Ukraine’s 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade.

For the second day (January 30) of fighting, less information is available. Novoe Vremya reported that separatists continued their attack against Ukrainian positions in the Promzone with 120mm and 152mm artillery, firing from south (near the village of Spartak) and southeast (Yakovlevka) of Avdiivka.

In sum, Ukrainian officials reported that separatists began an assault to seize the Promzone at around 5am on Sunday (January 29) morning, leading to seven deaths among Ukrainian soldiers, and between nine to fifteen for separatists.

Separatist version

Sources from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic have quite a different story than their Ukrainian counterparts. Separatist spokesperson Eduard Basurin claimed on Monday that “more than twenty-five Ukrainian soldiers died and more than forty were wounded in the past 24 hours.” He added that “five people died, and another seven were wounded” on the separatist side. Basurin also claimed that Ukraine broke the Minsk agreement 2000 times in 24 hours.

The press service of the DNR military shared a video reportage one of their officials, Daniil Bezsonov, on January 29: