(Berlin and Kyiv) The Ukrainian army was forced to abandon the eastern town of Avdiivka on Saturday, handing Russia its biggest symbolic victory after the failed counter-offensive launched by Kyiv last summer.
“In accordance with the order received, (we) withdrew from Avdiïvka to go to positions prepared in advance,” announced Ukrainian general Oleksandr Tarnavsky, who commands this area, in a message published on the social network Telegram night from Friday to Saturday.
Faced with a growing lack of resources due in particular to the blocking of American military aid, Ukraine could hardly avoid this withdrawal in the face of Russia which, with more soldiers and ammunition, was pushing its troops to obtain a conquest at a few days before the second anniversary of the start of the invasion, February 24.
“In the situation where the enemy advances by walking over the corpses of his own soldiers and has ten times more shells […] this is the only right decision,” General Tarnavsky continued. The Ukrainian forces thus avoided encirclement, near this largely destroyed industrial city, he assured.
ILLUSTRATION SYLVIE HUSSON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Map of the front line around the town of Avdiivka, Ukraine
This is a first major decision by the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armies Oleksandr Syrsky after his appointment to this post on February 8. He justified it by the desire to “preserve” the lives of his soldiers.
“With dignity”
“I decided to withdraw our units from the city and switch to defense on more favorable lines,” Oleksandr Syrsky previously wrote on Facebook. “Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted significant losses on the enemy,” continued General Syrsky.
Before formalizing the abandonment of the city, General Tarnavsky had admitted that “several soldiers” of Ukraine had been “captured” by Russian forces, who were “surplus in terms of manpower, artillery and aviation “.
Avdiïvka, which had around 34,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, has an important symbolic value.
The city is now largely destroyed but some 900 civilians remain there, according to local authorities. Moscow hopes its capture will make Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk more difficult.
The city briefly fell in July 2014 into the hands of pro-Russian separatists led by Moscow, before returning to Ukrainian control and remaining so despite the invasion and its proximity to Donetsk, the separatist capital in eastern Ukraine for ten years. .
According to Kyiv, the Russian army has been multiplying the assault waves since October to take Avdiïvka, despite very high human losses, a situation reminiscent of the battle of Bakhmout, a city that Moscow conquered in May 2023 after 10 months of fighting at the cost tens of thousands of deaths and injuries.
After the failure of the Ukrainian summer counter-offensive, it was the Russians who went on the attack, facing a Ukrainian army which was struggling to replenish its ranks and which was lacking ammunition.
The capture of Avdiivka comes at a time when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is leading a European tour. He indicated from Berlin that he was in permanent contact with the military command, whose main task, according to him, was to preserve the lives of soldiers and “minimize losses”.
In this tense context, Mr. Zelensky signed two bilateral security agreements on Friday in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron. He plans to attend the Security Conference in Munich on Saturday and meet US Vice President Kamala Harris there.
Civilian anguish
Avdiïvka is today largely destroyed but some 900 civilians remain there, according to local authorities. Moscow hopes its capture will make Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk more difficult.
The Russian push on this city is now raising questions among the inhabitants of surrounding localities: should we flee now or continue to hope that everything will go well?
“I hear a lot of people in the city wondering if they are going to evacuate or not,” Olena Obodets, who lives in Selydové, a town located about thirty kilometers from Avdiïvka and heavily hit these days, told AFP. last days.
“My daughter asks me every day to evacuate but I tell her each time that the time has not yet come,” confided this 42-year-old woman, speaking in front of the hospital damaged by a bombing, in sound of the dull thud of distant artillery fire.
AFP journalists saw several Selydové residents carrying travel bags and packed cars leaving the city as well as three military helicopters flying low outside its perimeter.
From now on, Ukraine faces multiple challenges: the offensive by Russian forces, blocked American military aid, the lack of men, weapons and ammunition.
In this tense context, Mr. Zelensky signed two bilateral security agreements on Friday in Berlin with Olaf Scholz and then in Paris with Emmanuel Macron. He plans to attend the Security Conference in Munich on Saturday and meet US Vice President Kamala Harris there.
In this German town, Mme Harris stressed on Friday that a failure to release the new aid package for Ukraine in the US Congress would amount to “giving a gift” to Vladimir Putin.
France and Germany sign security agreements with Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky signed a security agreement with Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening in Paris, who promised “up to three billion euros” in additional military aid for 2024 to Ukraine, in addition to the seven billion in support already announced through Berlin.
After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during the day, the French president in turn set long-term civil and military support for Kyiv in stone with a bilateral text. So much eagerly awaited support while the Ukrainian army is struggling against the Russians and American aid is frozen.
In this text concluded for “a period of ten years”, France undertakes to provide “up to three billion euros” in “additional” military aid to Kyiv in 2024, after support which it estimates at 1.7 billion in 2022 and 2.1 billion in 2023. Paris mentions in particular a strengthening of “cooperation in the field of artillery”.
The agreement provides for “the provision of comprehensive assistance to Ukraine” for “the restoration of its territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders”, “active deterrence and measures to be taken in the face of any further aggression” from Russia , as well as “support” for Kyiv’s membership in the European Union and “interoperability with NATO”.
“France confirms that Ukraine’s future membership in NATO would constitute a useful contribution to peace and stability in Europe,” this new pact also stipulates.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s European tour was overshadowed by the announcement of the death in prison of Alexei Navalny, number one opponent of Vladimir Putin, who already rules Russia with an iron fist, exacerbating tensions with the West and further extinguishing any hope of opening in Moscow.
The master of the Kremlin will have to “be held accountable for his crimes,” accused Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia condemns “free spirits” to death by putting them in the “gulag”, launched Emmanuel Macron. He “paid for his courage with his life,” added German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The Ukrainian president, visiting his European allies as his country prepares to enter its third year of war against Russia on February 24, had previously stopped in Berlin on Friday.
Olaf Scholz and Volodymyr Zelensky also signed a security agreement described as “historic” by the German Chancellor who assured his determination to support Ukraine “as long as necessary” against the Russian aggressor.
” Unprecedented ”
“Two years after the start of this terrible war, today we are sending a very clear message to the Russian president: we will not relax our support for Ukraine,” warned the German leader.
Illustration of this commitment: the signed document contains additional and immediate military aid in the amount of 1.1 billion euros, which is a tranche of the seven billion in support already announced by Germany for 2024.
He also plans to support Ukraine after the war to build a modern army capable of repelling possible future attacks from Russia.
“Our security agreement is a truly unprecedented bilateral document,” stressed the Ukrainian president in Berlin.
This diplomatic escape is crucial for Mr. Zelensky at a time when the situation has considerably deteriorated on the Ukrainian front.
In the east of the country, Avdiïvka is the epicenter of “fierce fighting” and now threatens to fall after months of Russian assaults. The Ukrainian army announced on Friday that it had withdrawn from a position it held south of this city in the face of increasing Russian assaults.