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- Written by Yaroslav Lukiv
- bbc news
image source, RL/Serhii Nuzhinenko/Reuters
Avdiivka was almost completely destroyed after months of intense fighting.
Ukraine’s military says it has withdrawn troops from the main eastern city of Avdiivka, which has been besieged by Russian forces for months.
Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Shirushkyi said he acted “to avoid a siege and to protect the lives and health of our military personnel.”
He added that he had moved troops to “more favorable fronts.”
The aide said Russian troops had a huge advantage in artillery and were advancing “on the bodies of their own soldiers.”
Avdiivka, the gateway to the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, has been embroiled in heavy fighting for months and is now almost completely destroyed.
The town has been a battlefield since Russian-backed warplanes took control of large swathes of eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014.
The fall of Avdiivka marks the biggest change on the more than 1,000 km (620 miles) long front since Russian forces captured the nearby town of Bakhmut in May 2023.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
In a statement on Facebook early Saturday morning, Col. Shirschiy said his decision was based on “the operational situation around Avdiivka.”
“Our soldiers performed their military service with dignity and did everything possible to destroy the elite units of the Russian army, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment.”
General Shirushky, who was just appointed as the country’s top commander a few days ago, said the Ukrainian military was “taking steps to stabilize the situation and maintain our positions.”
In a separate statement shortly thereafter, one of his deputies said troops had already left Avdiivka to “pre-prepared positions.”
“In a situation where the enemy is advancing over the corpses of his soldiers with a 10-to-1 shell superiority, under constant shelling, this is the only correct solution,” General Oleksandr Tarnavsky added. Ta.
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National Security Council spokesman John Kirby previously warned that Avdiivka was “at risk of falling under Russian control”.
He said this was mainly because “Ukrainian forces on the ground are running out of shells.”
“Russia is sending conscript troops one after another to attack Ukrainian positions,” he said.
“And because Congress has not yet passed additional legislation, we are unable to provide Ukraine with the ammunition it desperately needs to deter a Russian attack.”
Ukraine relies heavily on arms supplies from the United States and other Western allies to continue fighting Russia. Russia is a much larger military force with abundant artillery.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Thursday that the United States’ failure to approve continued military aid to Ukraine is already having an impact on the battlefield.
Russian forces have recently made significant advances in Avdiivka, threatening to encircle it.
Earlier this week, some Ukrainian soldiers privately acknowledged that the town could fall at any time.
“We are shaken,” Oleksi, a Ukrainian officer with Ukraine’s 110th Mechanized Brigade in the Avdiivka region, told the BBC, standing next to a huge mobile battery as Russian artillery fire roared in the distance.
“Currently, we have two shells; [explosive] You charge them a fee…so you can’t fire them. At the moment there is a shortage of shells,” Oleksiy said.
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