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The Ukrainian army was forced to withdraw from the city of Avdiivka in the east of the country on Saturday, giving Russia its largest symbolic victory after the failure of the counterattack launched by Kiev last summer.
The region's commander, Ukrainian General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, announced via Telegram on Friday night - Saturday, that "in accordance with the order we received, we withdrew from Avdiivka to pre-prepared positions."
Ukraine was forced to abandon the city of Avdiivka, the center of "violent fighting" in the east of the country, which has become largely destroyed, amid a growing shortage of resources and obstruction of American military aid, while Russia reinforced its forces with more elements and ammunition to control Avdiivka days before the anniversary. The second anniversary of the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24.
Tarnavsky added, "In a situation where the enemy advances by walking over the corpses of his soldiers and has ten times more shells (...), this is the only correct decision." He stressed that the Ukrainian forces thus avoided an encirclement near this largely destroyed industrial city.
This is the first major decision taken by the new Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Sirsky, after his appointment to this position on February 8. He justified this by the desire to "preserve" the lives of his soldiers.
“With dignity,”
Sersky wrote on Facebook, “I decided to withdraw our units from the city and switch to defense on more convenient lines.”
"Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity and did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy," he added.
Before officially announcing the withdrawal from the city, Tarnavsky admitted that “many Ukrainian soldiers” had been “captured” by Russian forces that had “a surplus in terms of manpower, artillery and aviation.”
Avdiivka, whose population was about 34 thousand people before the Russian attack in February 2022, has an important symbolic value, and the city has become largely destroyed, but there are still about 900 civilians in it, according to local authorities, and Moscow hopes that controlling it will make... The Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk is more difficult.
Kiev said that the Russian army is intensifying its attacks despite its heavy human losses since October, a situation reminiscent of the battle of the city of Bakhmut, which Moscow took control of in May 2023 after 10 months of fighting that cost it tens of thousands of deaths and injuries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged Thursday to do "everything possible" to save his forces on the eastern front, especially in Avdiivka, the center of the fighting, after both the Ukrainian army and the US administration described the situation as "critical."
After the failure of the major counterattack launched by Ukraine in the summer, the Russians became the first to attack the Ukrainian army, which faces difficulties in replenishing its forces and lacks ammunition.
Avdiyevka has an important symbolic value, as it fell briefly in 2014 into the hands of Moscow-backed separatists, before returning to Kiev’s control, in addition to its proximity to the city of Donetsk, a stronghold of Russia’s supporters for ten years.
Days before the second anniversary of the start of the Russian attack, Ukraine faces several challenges: attacks by Russian forces, faltering American military aid, and a shortage of fighters, weapons, and ammunition.
In contrast, Russia is proud of the deployment of 600,000 soldiers on the front, and of its economy entirely devoted to the war effort, which Western sanctions have failed to derail.
The withdrawal from Avdiivka comes at a time when Zelensky is on a European tour.
He said from Berlin that he is in constant contact with the military leadership, whose main mission he stated is to preserve the lives of soldiers and “minimize losses.”
Zelensky signed bilateral security agreements on Friday in Berlin and then in Paris to obtain long-term aid from Germany and France for his country, with pledges to provide military support of about 10 billion dollars during the year 2024.
Amid these developments, the Russian authorities confirmed that they had thwarted several attacks by Ukrainian drones overnight. Friday Saturday.
AFP