Avdeevka, Ukraine. Our sources are reporting that Russian troops opened fire on a team of electricians #ukraine #Donbas — Beacon of Freedom (@BeaconofFreedom) February 7, 2017

Our sources on the ground in Avdeevka are reporting aggression by Russian troops, who are firing on electricians trying to fix the damage caused by Russian bombings.

A Ukrainian attempt to advance towards Donetsk encountered fierce resistance and was driven back with heavy losses, with fears at one point that Ukrainian troops in the town of Avdeevka would find themselves encircled by the militia in what in eastern Ukrainian military parlance is called a “cauldron” as has happened repeatedly in the past. Though on Russian urging the militia appears for the moment to be holding back from doing this – with latest reports suggesting the fighting may be finally dying down – it seems the Ukrainians were caught in the open and suffered heavy losses from shelling, though the exact number of their casualties as always is hard to judge.

As regularly happens in the fighting in Ukraine, Ukrainian casualties were made worse by the Ukrainian leadership’s refusal to allow their troops to pull back. On the contrary they seem to have urged their troops to go on attacking even as more and more of them were being killed, and even as the whole Ukrainian position in Avdeevka became threatened.