After months of fighting, the Ukrainian army was forced to abandon the eastern town of Avdiivka on Saturday.
It thus concedes to Russia its greatest symbolic victory, after the failure of the counter-offensive launched by kyiv last summer.
“In accordance with the order received, (we) withdrew from Avdiivka to positions prepared in advance,” announced Ukrainian General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, who commands this area, in a message published on the social network Telegram during the night from Friday to this Saturday.
Why this withdrawal of Ukrainian troops?
This is a first major decision by the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armies Oleksandr Syrsky after his appointment to this post on February 8.
He justified it by the desire to “preserve” the lives of his soldiers.
“It was a professional decision to save as many lives as possible (…) it was a fair decision,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this Saturday morning from Germany, at the podium of the Munich Conference on security.
“In the situation where the enemy is advancing by walking over the corpses of its own soldiers and has ten times more shells (…) this is the only right decision,” General Tarnavsky also wrote in his message.
Before formalizing the abandonment of the city, he acknowledged that “several soldiers” of Ukraine had been “captured” by Russian forces, who were “surplus in terms of manpower, artillery and aviation”.
Avdiivka.
February 2024.
A zone of total genocide by the Russian army.
Demolished buildings, hospitals in ruins, destroyed playgrounds.
This is the true face of Putin, of Russia.
📹: Yurii Butusov pic.twitter.com/GxoreLPWow
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 8, 2024
The Ukrainian army is in fact faced with a growing lack of resources due in particular to the blocking of American military aid.
It could hardly avoid this withdrawal in the face of Russia which, with more soldiers and ammunition, pushed its troops to obtain a conquest a few days before the second anniversary of the start of the invasion, on February 24.
The situation in the city, plunged into permanent fighting, had been described as “chaotic”.
By abandoning this post, the Ukrainian forces avoided encirclement near this largely destroyed industrial city, assured General Tarnavsky.
“Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, they did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted significant losses on the enemy,” General Syrsky nevertheless insisted.
How important is this city?
Avdiivka, which had around 34,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, has important symbolic value.
The city is now largely destroyed but some 900 civilians remain there, according to local authorities.
Avdiivka briefly fell in July 2014 into the hands of pro-Russian separatists led by Moscow.
But it then returned to Ukrainian control, despite the invasion and its proximity to Donetsk, the separatist capital in eastern Ukraine for ten years.
By taking control of Avdiivka, Moscow hopes to make Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk more difficult.
According to kyiv, the Russian army has been increasing its assault waves since October to take the city, despite very high human losses.
A situation reminiscent of the battle of Bakhmut, a city that Moscow conquered in May 2023 after 10 months of fighting at the cost of tens of thousands of dead and wounded.
Towards a global decline in Ukraine?
The loss of Avdiivka is far from marking the end of the fighting in Ukraine.
Oleksandre Syrsky thus explained that he had “decided to withdraw” the units from Avdiivka in order to “move to defense on more favorable lines”.
At the same time, kyiv is constantly renewing its attacks on its border with Russia: in recent hours, the Russian authorities have assured that they have foiled several Ukrainian drone assaults.
From Germany, Volodymyr Zelensky, however, stressed that the lack of ammunition and long-range weapons benefits Russian troops, and called for Western help.
Also read “For Ukraine, the only possible strategy is to stand back”: 2024, the year of all dangers for kyiv?
The Ukrainian president signed two security agreements with Paris and Berlin on Friday.
France has committed to providing “up to three billion euros” in additional aid to Ukraine for 2024. This agreement “concluded for a period of ten years” also refers to a strengthening of “cooperation in the field of artillery.
These sums will be added to the seven billion announced by Berlin.
The text signed with Germany also plans to support Ukraine after the war so that it can equip itself with a modern army capable of repelling other possible attacks from Russia in the future.
These bilateral agreements are not an “alternative” solution to support from Washington, the Ukrainian leader stressed in Paris.
But he said he hoped that this would “give an impetus to the United States” to release the expected aid.