Decimated Ukraine city falls into Russian control
Avdiivka’s defenders retreat as manpower, ammunition dwindle
KHARKIV, Ukraine — Ukraine ordered the complete withdrawal from the decimated city of Avdiivka before dawn Saturday, surrendering a position that had been a military stronghold for the better part of a decade, in the face of withering Russian assault.
“Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said in a statement.
The fall of Avdiivka, a city that was once home to some 30,000 people but is now a smoking ruin, is the first major gain Russian forces have achieved since May of last year. After rebuffing a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer and fall, Russian forces in recent weeks have been pressing the attack across nearly the entire length of the 600-mile-long front.
The Ukrainian withdrawal Saturday follows a bloody endgame that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the nearly two-year-old war. Relying on its superiority in personnel and weaponry, Russia pounded the city with aerial bombardments and ground assaults, even as its fighters suffered staggering casualties.
Outgunned Ukrainian forces had begun withdrawing from positions in the southern part of the city Wednesday and since then have been engaged in a desperate battle to avoid encirclement inside the city as Russian forces advanced from multiple directions. As Russian bombers pummeled Avdiivka, Ukraine said its forces shot down three Russian warplanes.
Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, head of Ukraine’s forces in the south, said there had been no choice but to withdraw, given the Russian advantage in firepower and the number of soldiers Russia was willing to throw into the battle.
“In a situation where the enemy is advancing on the corpses of their own soldiers with a 10-to-1 shell advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only correct solution,” he said in a statement.
The commander said that there were losses for the Ukrainians and “at the final stage of the operation, under pressure from the superior forces of the enemy, some Ukrainian servicemen fell into captivity.”
Even if Ukrainian lines stabilize in the rear of Avdiivka, the city’s fall into Russian control will allow Moscow’s military to move its troops and equipment more efficiently as it presses in other directions.
“Avdiivka is a very important strong point in the Ukrainian system of defense,” because it protects Pokrovsk, about 30 miles to the northwest, a logistical hub for the Ukrainian army, said Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Ukraine. “Taking control of Avdiivka might create an opening for Russia.”
Soldiers reached by phone Friday, who asked not to be identified, given the ongoing military action, described a harrowing bid to escape the city. They gave accounts of racing past blasted-out buildings as shells thundered from all around and Russians pressed in from several directions.
“In one of the sectors in the town, fighters from the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade find themselves completely surrounded, but they are attempting to break through, and they succeed,” Maj. Rodion Kudryashov, deputy commander of the assault brigade, said in an interview with Radio Liberty.
Some expressed concern privately in interviews that the call to withdraw had come too late, or posted stark accounts on social media of their dangerous and chaotic retreat.
Soldiers posting videos on social media provided a window into how dangerous movement in the area had become.
In one video, several Ukrainian soldiers ride atop an armored vehicle just half a mile from the Avdiivka Coke Chemical Plant on the northwestern edge of the city, a landmark.
They drive past the sign “Avdiivka is Ukraine” at the entrance to the city, made famous when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a selfie video from there in December. Seconds later, the soldiers duck and grimace as shells land just yards from them, throwing up clouds of dust and dirt.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told the Kremlin that Russian forces were working to clear the final pockets of resistance at the plant, officials said in a statement.
Videos appeared to show soldiers raising the Russian flag over one of the plant’s buildings.