Ukraine withdraws from Avdiivka.
In this city in the province of Donetsk, practically surrounded by Russian troops since the end of 2023, the invader's flag will fly since the announcement at midnight this Saturday of the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Its commander in chief, Oleksander Sirski, confirmed this in a statement in which he justified his decision “to avoid being besieged and preserve the lives” of the deployed soldiers.
This is the biggest victory for Russian troops since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023.
Ukrainian military accounts on Telegram claim that there were nearly 5,000 defending soldiers in the city.
This week there were public messages of alarm from the brigades resisting in Avdiivka confirming that it was impossible to stop the enemy.
Sirski has now followed a different strategy regarding the Russian siege of Bakhmut in winter 2023. At that time, the now commander-in-chief was responsible for the Army.
Following orders from the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Sirsky ordered resistance in the urban area of Bakhmut until the last meter.
That objective required concentrating a good part of the Ukrainian military potential in Bakhmut, but it caused a very high number of casualties and also gave Russia time to build fortifications along the entire front.
This is what allowed Moscow's armies to derail last summer's Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Avdiivka is a city adjacent to the town of Donetsk, illegally annexed by Russia.
Taking this municipality allows the invading troops to reduce the risk of receiving artillery fire in Donetsk, also gaining a new bastion to avoid a possible Ukrainian offensive in the future.
On the Ukrainian side, the loss of Avdiivka is a step back in the protection shield of the eastern sector of the part they maintain under their control of the province of Donetsk, and more specifically, the city of Pokrovsk.
This city and Kramatorsk are the main centers of the Ukrainian rear on the Donetsk front.
Avdiivka is also important for the Ukrainian metallurgical industry because it is home to Europe's largest coke plant, a fuel used in blast furnaces.
The Ukrainian army will remain in the Avdiivka perimeter, where in the last three months it has erected new defense lines.
Umerov has also highlighted that the Armed Forces are working to build better fortifications and stop enemy offensives.
Russia is at its strongest since the first months of the invasion, with clear superiority in the number of troops, artillery, anti-aircraft defenses and, above all, in control of the aerial war thanks to its fleet of attack drones and recognition.
Ukrainian troops on the front line in Avdiivka already predicted to EL PAÍS last November that it was very difficult to resist the Russian siege beyond this winter.
Artillery officers from the 47th Mechanized Brigade detailed that in Avdiivka they had 10 times less ammunition available than during the summer 2023 counteroffensive in Zaporizhia.
A mortar unit from the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade stated that if in 2022 the ammunition difference was three to one in favor of the Russians, now it is eight to one.
Precisely, the men of the 110th Brigade have played a key role in recent hours to open a safe evacuation corridor for troops within the city, as reported by the Intelligence Services of the Ministry of Defense (GUR).
Ten times superior in artillery
General Oleksander Tarnavski, sector commander of this front, has also issued a statement in which he has defended that the departure from Avdiivka is the correct decision in the face of Russian fire superiority 10 times greater than Ukraine's, and with massive infantry assaults. “in which their soldiers advance even stepping on the corpses of their companions.”
Tarnavskii has also stressed that his troops have found themselves in a situation where they could not operate under constant bombardment.
Defense Minister Rustem Umerov has published a statement in which in the first point he emphasizes that his army needs more anti-aircraft defenses to stop the Russian superiority in guided missiles, such as cruise missiles, launched by enemy aircraft.
Umerov has also indicated that they need more long-range weapons technology to disrupt the invader's logistics network and artillery ammunition, as requested by its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the Munich Security Conference.
The arsenals of Ukraine's NATO partners are at minimum levels and the priority of the Ukrainian General Staff is to ration ammunition as much as possible.
kyiv's other urgency is to immediately launch a new massive mobilization of troops to relieve hundreds of thousands of casualties, including wounded and dead.
880,000 people have been involved in the defense of the country, according to Zelensky's official data, and the army believes it is necessary to recruit 500,000 civilians.
This mobilization is a cause of discontent among the population, because fewer and fewer people are willing to join the fighting at a time when the meaning of the war is bleak for the interests of Ukraine.
Russia is advancing, little by little, on the Donetsk and Kharkiv fronts.
The advance of the invading forces is slow but constant, because every few hundred meters they follow the strategy of raising trenches to secure their positions.
The next Russian strategic objectives are the cities of Kupiansk (Kharkov) and Chasiv Yar (Donetsk), two municipalities that, due to their orographic conditions, serve as key defense bastions.
The situation in both cities repeats the same patterns as in other cities besieged by Russia, including Avdiivka: artillery and missiles from Russian fighter-bombers are attacking the Ukrainian defensive lines, but also the urban area.
Meanwhile, Moscow is accumulating infantry on the flanks for a next phase of constant assaults in which, once again, it does not prioritize the lives of its soldiers, only the objective.
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