MOSCOW: Ukrainian troops withdrew from the devastated eastern town of Avdiivka, Kyiv’s military chief said on Saturday, paving the way for Russia’s biggest advance since it captured the city of Bakhmut last May.
The pullback, announced as Ukraine faces acute shortages of ammunition with US military aid delayed for months in Congress, aimed to save troops from being fully surrounded by Russian forces after months of fierce fighting, Kyiv said.
Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who took command of the Ukrainian military in a major shake-up last week, said Ukrainian forces had moved back to more secure positions outside the town, which had a pre-war population of 32,000.
“I decided to withdraw our units from the town and move to defence from more favourable lines in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen,” he said.
Nearly two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the withdrawal is the clearest sign yet of how the tide of the war has turned in Moscow’s favour after a Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to break through Russian lines last year.
The withdrawal was conducted according to plan, but some Ukrainian soldiers were captured by Russia in the final stages, Brigadier-General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said, without specifying how many.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his troops for “exhausting” Russian forces in Avdiivka and said he agreed with the decision to withdraw in order to save lives.