The Ukrainian army has withdrawn from the city of Avdiïvka, which has been under siege for weeks by the Russian armed forces.
This was announced by General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, commander of the Kiev military in this area of Donbass, a few kilometers from Donetsk.
“In accordance with the order received, we retreated from Avdiivka to the positions prepared in advance,” he wrote on Telegram, adding: “In the situation where the enemy advances walking on the corpses of his own soldiers and has ten times more bullets This is the only right decision."
Oleksandr Syrskyy, commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, had announced the decision on Facebook: "Based on the operational situation that developed around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and to preserve the life and health of military personnel, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and switch to defense on more advantageous lines. Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units and inflict significant losses on the enemy."
For Moscow this is an important military victory, especially from a symbolic point of view, after the difficulties encountered in recent months in undermining the Ukrainian defenses.
The city of Avdiïvka, which before the Russian invasion had around 34,000 inhabitants (now there are less than a thousand left, mostly elderly people), is a pile of rubble after weeks of heavy artillery exchanges.
The offensive intensified last October when the Russian army multiplied the assault waves to conquer the objective.
An attack that cost the lives of hundreds of soldiers, a siege reminiscent of that of Bakhmout, conquered after 10 months of ferocious fighting.
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