Moscow loses 17,000 men in first gain since May last year
MORE than 17,000 Russian soldiers were killed in Avdiivka in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine has said.
The capture of the city on Saturday was the Kremlin’s first major battlefield victory since its conquest of Bakhmut in May but analysts have said that it came at a terrible cost.
“The losses of Russians around Avdiivka are colossal. My colleagues and I did the calculations and pulled up our archival records from the beginning of the year,” said Dmitry Likhovy, Ukrainian military spokesman.
At least 30,000 Russian soldiers had been injured in the battle, he said. Russian forces planted their victory flags over the ruins: video from the destroyed city showed almost every building in ruins and rubble blocking every street.
Ukrainian forces said they retreated from the city but had used it to pull the Russian army into a killing zone.
Yesterday, Russian media reported Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, confirmed that Russian forces had captured the city, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“The minister of defence and the chief of the general staff are reporting to the president that our units are developing an offensive and are not allowing the enemy to gain a foothold on new lines,” he said.
In the West, the loss of Avdiivka touched off a row over a shortage of ammunition. The Us-based Institute for the Study of War said that Russian air superiority was a significant reason for its success in Avdiivka. F-16 fighter jets are due to arrive in Ukraine in June.
At an international security conference
‘If Donald Trump [comes] to Ukraine then I am ready to personally accompany him to the front line’
in Munich, Volodymyr Zelensky blamed a shortage of ammunition from the West for the fall. On Saturday, he also invited Donald Trump, likely to be Republican candidate in the US presidential election, to see the front lines.
“If Trump [comes] to Ukraine, I am ready to go with him to the front line,” he said. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, also said that she would increase the number of artillery shells being sent to Ukraine.