Day 390: March 20The freshest reports suggest that Russians immediately started moving in multiple directions at once, namely towards Novokalynove and Berdychi. In order to maintain the momentum of advancement and expand their bridgehead as fast as possible, Russian forces deployed a lot of tanks and armored vehicles to facilitate further movement of their infantry.Simultaneously, after retreating from Krasnohorivka, Ukrainian forces urgently engaged additional units to stabilize the front line. The extensive use of tanks by Russians has been noted already during the battles east of Krasnohorivka, so Ukrainians have deployed more mobile irregular formations to mitigate this problem. One of the irregular units operating in the Donetsk direction is a unit of special operators, White Wolves. Two days before Russians launched another wave of assaults, White Wolves released a video showing how they destroyed 10 Russian tanks during the night in order to undermine the ability of Russians to penetrate Ukrainian defenses.As a result, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian attack on Novokalynove was repelled. If we look at the topographic map, we can see that Russians control two important hills north of Krasnohorivka, while Ukrainians are located in the lowlands, so Russians have a tactical advantage in this regard. However, because of the scattered farmland facilities, small lakes, and ravines, breaking through Ukrainian defenses here proved to be too difficult.Russian forces also increased the intensity of their attacks to the south of Avdiivka. Here, Russian forces have been struggling for a long time to breach the Ukrainian defense in front of Vodiane. Geolocated footage shows that recently Russian tanks tried to move around and assault Ukrainians from the flanks. Ukrainian 35th Marine Brigade timely spotted the attackers and destroyed several Russian tanks and armored vehicles.Ukrainian 53rd Mechanized Brigaded also reported about Russian advances to the south of Avdiivka, more specifically from Opytne. This time Russian forces were more successful, and despite the best Ukrainian efforts, managed to breach Ukrainian defenses and got closer to the city itself.However, it seems like the engagement of so much armor in the south was just to immobilize Ukrainian troops before their main attack. After Russian forces in the south successfully drew Ukrainian attention to this region and in some places like Opytne managed to entangle Ukrainians in positional fights, Russian forces in Krasnohorivka made another push and achieved the most significant results in the most unexpected area.Today it was reported that Russian forces conducted a heavy mechanized assault on Stepove. Some sources reported that Russians managed to cross the railways and establish partial control over the village. Right now, Ukrainians are urgently relocating troops to Berdychi. Some Russian sources have already confirmed that one Ukrainian tank unit has already arrived in Stepove to push Russians out. If we look at the topographic map, we can see that Ukrainians are controlling an artificial hill, which should give them a lot of control over the surrounding area. The fact that Russians have to maintain positions on the other side of the railway embankment complicates the situation for Russians even more and makes it extremely unstable. This means that Russians will either shortly make an even bigger mechanized assault with the goal of taking not only Stepove but also Berdychi, or they will be completely destroyed.Overall, substantial reinforcements of the Russian forces in the Adviivka direction allowed Russians to open multiple lines of attack along the whole front line, fix Ukrainian troops in low-priority directions and generate a breakthrough to the north of Avdiivka. So far, Ukrainians seem to be doing everything they can – they mine the areas of advance, and they engage a lot of drones, artillery, and aviation. The number of tanks and armored vehicles engaged over the last week reminds us of what we saw in Vuhledar. Russians are trying to encircle Avdiivka as fast as possible, so if Ukrainians manage to slow them down enough, then Russians may once again run out of armor and troops before they secure crucial gains.