The Ukrainian army withdrew from Avdiivka, the city on the eastern front that has been facing a ferocious Russian offensive for months. As those in the know will already know, this is not a painless fall. The one from the last few hours represents Moscow’s greatest victory since the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive last summer. “According to the order received, we retreated from Avdiivka to the positions prepared in advance,” the brigadier general wrote in a message on Telegram Oleksandr Tarnavski.
But because Avdiivka is so central in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine? An industrial town in the center of Donbass, it housed the most important Ukrainian plant for the production of coke, a fuel derived from coal, which has now become one of the cornerstones of Kiev’s defense. From a military point of view, it is a city that represents a fundamental outpost in the territories occupied by Moscow and had already ended up at the center of bloody battles in the past: after the brief occupation by pro-Russian separatists in 2014, followed by the Ukrainian liberation, in 2017 it was the site of one of the largest clashes between pro-Russians and Ukrainians.
The fall of Avdiivka is yet another bad news for Volodymyr Zelenskyincreasingly in difficulty. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the Ukrainian president justified the withdrawal as the “right decision to save lives”. But diametrically opposed analyzes are coming from Moscow. As highlighted by the spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Ukrainian troops withdrew from Avdiivka “because the regime of President Volodymyr Zelensky knows how to fight only for money and only against civilians”. “Everything else doesn’t matter to them,” added the Foreign Ministry official.
The spotlight is now on other delicate fronts but also on aid for Ukraine. The Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg denounced that the delay of the US Congress in approving the new military aid package has a “direct impact” on the front line in Ukraine: “The problem now is that the lack of decisions on the part of the US Congress means that the flow arriving from the United States has decreased and that this has a direct impact on the front in Ukraine.” Stoltenberg highlighted the urgency of the intervention, evidenced by the fall of Avdiivka to the Russians: It’s not about making the right decisions, but about making them at the right time, as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Every extra week we wait means more people will be killed on the front lines in Ukraine.” Further updates coming soon.