{"id":15694,"date":"2024-02-18T00:46:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T00:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/18\/ukraines-forces-withdraw-from-key-eastern-town-of-avdiivka-after-months-of-fighting\/"},"modified":"2024-02-18T00:46:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T00:46:35","slug":"ukraines-forces-withdraw-from-key-eastern-town-of-avdiivka-after-months-of-fighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/18\/ukraines-forces-withdraw-from-key-eastern-town-of-avdiivka-after-months-of-fighting\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s forces withdraw from key eastern town of Avdiivka after months of fighting"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ukrainian forces have announced the withdrawal of its forces from Avdiivka, a key town which in recent months became one of the most fiercely contested battles on the eastern front. <\/p>\n

The move followed an intensification of Moscow\u2019s attacks on the area, as Russia pummeled it with airstrikes and artillery and sent wave after wave of ground assaults by armored vehicles and soldiers. <\/p>\n

While the town\u2019s strategic significance is limited, Avdiivka marks the biggest gain for Moscow\u00a0since it captured the city of Bakhmut last year and is an indication of how the war appears to have turned in Putin\u2019s favor. <\/p>\n

Ukraine meanwhile faces renewed pressure across the eastern front, compounded by ammunition and manpower shortages. <\/p>\n

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the decision to pull back from Avdiivka was made to \u201csave our soldiers\u2019 lives.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to avoid being surrounded, it was decided to withdraw to other lines. This does not mean that people retreated some kilometres and Russia captured something, it did not capture anything,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Avdiivka has been on the front lines since\u00a0Russian-backed fighters\u00a0seized large portions of the Donbas region, including the nearby city of Donetsk, in 2014. It has been under fire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. <\/p>\n

Withdrawing from the town, to the northwest of Donetsk city, was \u201cthe only correct solution,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s commander of southern forces Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said in a Telegram post Friday, adding that some Ukrainian troops had been captured by Russia during the process. <\/p>\n

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\u201cIn a situation where the enemy is advancing on the corpses of their own soldiers with a ten-to-one shell advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only correct solution,\u201d he said. Russian troops are \u201cnumerically superior in terms of personnel, artillery and aviation,\u201d\u00a0Tarnavskyi added. <\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s forces had carried out 20 airstrikes and more than 150 artillery attacks in the area over the past 24 hours, he said, adding that the Russians were \u201cpractically erasing the city from the face of the earth.\u201d <\/p>\n

The decision comes just days after Ukraine\u2019s new military chief Oleksandr\u00a0Syrskyi and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov visited the front lines in Avdiivka, pledging to send reinforcements to \u201cprevent the enemy from advancing deeper into our territory.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, by Thursday, Ukrainian forces battling to hold the town were describing \u201chellish\u201d conditions and the enemy \u201ccoming from all sides\u201d. <\/p>\n

Syrskyi said in a Facebook post on Friday that he ordered the withdrawal \u201cto avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen\u201d and he was moving troops to defend \u201cmore favorable lines.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said Ukrainian soldiers had done \u201ceverything possible to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ukraine was \u201ctaking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain positions,\u201d\u00a0he said, adding\u00a0\u201cthe life of military personnel is of the highest value.\u201d <\/p>\n

The commander of the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade, which as one of Ukraine\u2019s most battle-hardened units had been sent to defend Avdiivka, said the retreat meant Ukrainian troops could \u201ccome back and strike even harder.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful to the command for their considered decision,\u201d Andrii Biletsky said in a Telegram post on Saturday. \u201cI thank the soldiers for the brave fight they put up against the enemy in Avdiivka, in the face of absolute numerical superiority of the Russians in manpower, equipment and shells,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Russia too has suffered immense losses in its offensive on Avdiivka, but Moscow appears to have calculated that, given its numerical advantage, these were worth it. <\/p>\n

A symbol of Ukraine\u2019s struggles<\/h2>\n

Avdiivka\u2019s loss is an undoubted blow to Ukraine. <\/p>\n

A counteroffensive launched months ago aimed at winning back substantial territory has floundered and the country is seeing signs that once rock-solid support from the West is waning,\u00a0not least from its key ally US. <\/p>\n

And with Ukraine on the back foot on other parts of the front, Ukraine\u2019s new army chief Syrskyi faces a huge challenge bringing the fight back to Russia. <\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s troops\u00a0went on the offensive around Avdiivka in October. Since then, it became a point of intense combat with round-the-clock Russian shelling and waves of soldiers and armoured vehicles\u00a0pressing. <\/p>\n

Russia had been concentrating its efforts on encircling Avdiivka and gaining control of nearby areas. <\/p>\n

A Ukrainian officer, Serhii Tsekhotskyi, recently told Ukrainian television that Russia was deploying large numbers of troops in the battle for Avdiivka. Many were being killed, he insisted. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey do not spare their people,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Russian assault was similar to the \u201cmeat-grinder\u201d tactics used to capture Bakhmut last year, where a NATO source estimated that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russia lost five. <\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s advances in Avdiivka, however, had been slowed by Ukrainian troops who were heavily entrenched in the area. <\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in December called the fighting in the city an \u201conslaught\u201d and said the battle could in many ways \u201cdetermine the overall course of the war.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pressure across the front<\/h2>\n

The town\u2019s capture comes with Ukraine warning that it is facing a\u00a0renewed Russian offensive\u00a0along much of the frontline, with heavy fighting in the northeast along a stretch of territory where the regions of Kharkiv and Luhansk meet. <\/p>\n

There has been no major breakthrough there for Moscow\u2019s forces, but Ukraine has been forced to give up some pockets of territory it had recaptured in its successful advance in late summer 2022. <\/p>\n

The recent flurry of Russian offensives come as Ukraine has also said it is facing\u00a0critical shortages of ammunition, essential for its battlefield troops. <\/p>\n

There are\u00a0rising concerns\u00a0that Ukraine\u2019s US lifeline is hanging by a thinning thread, with President Joe Biden\u2019s national security adviser warning late last year: \u201cWe\u2019re running out of money, and we are nearly out of time.\u201d <\/p>\n

On February 7, Senate Republicans blocked a\u00a0major bipartisan border deal and foreign aid package\u00a0with assistance for Ukraine and Israel, amid a torrent of attacks on the bill by former President Donald Trump and top House Republicans.\u00a0The White House is making another attempt to gain Congressional approval for military aid for Kyiv, but it is far from clear if House Republicans, in particular, will support it. <\/p>\n

There have been concerns that Ukraine is slipping down the agenda of the West since the Hamas attack on Israel last year and the widening conflict in the Middle East. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Zelensky in early February announced the dismissal of Ukraine\u2019s top commander, General\u00a0Valerii Zaluzhnyi,\u00a0marking the biggest military shakeup since the start of\u00a0Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion\u00a0almost two years ago. <\/p>\n

A Russian election next month provides Putin with even more incentive to gain a victory in Ukraine. The Kremlin leader is running for a fifth term and is expected to secure a win which will keep him in office until 2030. <\/p>\n

Looking deeper into 2024, NATO allies\u00a0fear\u00a0that Russian President Vladimir Putin may attempt a broader offensive following his expected victory in his country\u2019s presidential elections in March \u2013 elections which outside observers view as a mere formality. <\/p>\n

This is a developing story and will be updated. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian forces have announced the withdrawal of its forces from Avdiivka, a key town which in recent months became one of the most fiercely contested battles on the eastern front. The move followed an intensification of Moscow\u2019s attacks on the area, as Russia pummeled it with airstrikes and artillery and sent wave after wave of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}