After months of heavy fighting and little progress in repelling Russian forces in the country’s eastern front, Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the front-line city of Avdiivka.
New army Chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi announced on Saturday, February 17, 2024, that he decided to withdraw the units from the town in order “to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen.”
He added that troops were moving to “more favourable lines.”
“Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment,” he noted.
“We are taking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain our positions,” he disclosed.
Oleksandr Tarnavsky, the army’s Commander of the Avdiivka area, said, “In a situation where the enemy is advancing over the corpses of their own soldiers with a 10-to-one shelling advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only right decision.”
The retreat paves the way for Russia’s biggest advance since May 2023 when it captured the city of Bakhmut.
The battle for Avdiivka, less than 10km (six miles) north of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, has been one of the bloodiest of the two-year war.
Many compare it with the battle for Bakhmut, in which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed.
Russia has been trying to capture the city since October and has surrounded it on three sides, leaving limited resupply routes for Ukrainian forces.
Avdiivka had about 34,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion.
Most of the city has been since destroyed but according to local authorities, an estimated 1,000 residents remain.
The withdrawal comes as Ukrainian frontline troops are under compounding pressures, with exhausted ranks facing a shortage of artillery shells; a problem worsened by the stalling of a large U.S funding package.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry was reported as saying that Russian forces had improved their positions on the front lines in four different areas, including in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Stoltenberg Says U.S Congress Delay Has Direct Impact On Frontline In Ukraine
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, stated that conditions at Ukraine’s frontline are directly impacted by U.S aid delay.
“The problem now is of course the lack of decision in the U.S congress means that the flow from the US has gone down, and that has a direct impact on the frontline in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.
“This is not only about making the right decision, but it’s about making the right decision early – as quickly as possible,” he noted.
He added, “It’s urgent, every week we wait means that there will be more people killed on the frontline in Ukraine.”
“It’s not for me to give advice on how to pass legislation through the U.S congress, but what I can say is the vital and urgent need for the U.S to decide on a package for Ukraine, because they need that support.
“And we have a burden-sharing between Europe and Canada and the United States, so now it’s for the US to deliver what they have promised.”
Jens Stoltenberg
Also at the conference, Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted that Ukraine can win the war against Russia.
“We can get our land back. And Putin can lose. And this has already happened more than once on the battlefield,” the Ukrainian President asserted.
Nonetheless, he warned that “if we do not act now, Putin will manage to make the next years catastrophic – catastrophic for other nations as well.”
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