Avdiivka: Russia has captured some soldiers, Ukrainian commander says, as Kyiv’s forces withdraw from key town

CNN
 — 

Russia captured some Ukrainian soldiers during the withdrawal of Kyiv’s forces from the key town of Avdiivka, according to Ukraine’s commander of southern forces.

Ukraine announced its withdrawal from the town, to the northwest of Donetsk city, on Friday following some of the heaviest fighting of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The withdrawal comes after Moscow intensified its attacks on the area in recent weeks, pummeling it with airstrikes and artillery and sending wave after wave of ground assaults by armored vehicles and soldiers.

Withdrawal was “the only correct solution,” Ukraine’s commander of southern forces Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said in a Telegram post Friday, adding that some Ukrainian troops had been captured during the process.

“In 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,” he said. Russian troops are “numerically superior in terms of personnel, artillery and aviation,” Tarnavskyi added.

Moscow’s 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 “practically erasing the city from the face of the earth.”

The decision comes just days after Ukraine’s new military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov visited the front lines in Avdiivka, with the military chief pledging to send reinforcements to “prevent the enemy from advancing deeper into our territory.”

However, by Thursday, Ukrainian forces battling to hold the town were describing “hellish” conditions and the enemy “coming from all sides”.

Syrskyi said in a Facebook post on Friday that he ordered the withdrawal “to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen,” moving troops to defend “more favourable lines.”

He said Ukrainian soldiers had done “everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment” in the area.

Ukraine is “taking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain positions,” he said, adding “the life of military personnel is of the highest value.”

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.

Lying just a few kilometers north of Donetsk airport, Avdiivka was captured by Russian forces in early 2015 after months of periodically heavy fighting. It has been firmly in Moscow’s crosshairs ever since.

Its capture would have added value to Moscow, with Russia’s presidential election just a few weeks away.

This is a developing story and will be updated.