Ukrainian troops near Avdiivka before the fall of the town to Russia on February 17, 2024 (Vlada Liberova/Libkos/Getty)

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EA on France 24: Ukraine War — How Significant is Russia’s Capture of Avdiivka?

Tuesday’s Coverage: Zelenskiy Visits “Extremely Difficult” Frontline in Kharkiv Region

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1815 GMT:

As expected, the Russian Supreme Court has blocked the Presidential candidacy of politician Boris Nadezhdin after he surprised the Kremlin by quickly gathering more than 200,000 signatures of support.

The Central Election Commission prevented Nadezhdin from standing in the March 15-17 ballot by proclaiming that many of the signatures were not legally gathered.

The Court convened for nine hours, questioning witnesses and examining the materials of the claim. Nazezhdin was not present because of a family holiday in an Asian country.

Nadezhdin said he “will not accept the refusal” and will appeal the Court’s decision within five days.

Russian officials have shut down any real challenge to Vladimir Putin, with a few politicians standing who are guaranteed to defer to the Russian leader and be heavily defeated in the managed election.

In December, the Central Election Commission immediately shut down the candidacy of journalist Yekaterina Duntsova, who has expressed opposition to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

UPDATE 1635 GMT:

Russian military blogger Andrey Morozov has reportedly committed suicide after posting about the extensive Russian casualties in the four-month offensive to overrun Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.

Morozov reported 16,000 Russians killed or severely wounded in the offensive, compared to 15,000 Soviet troops slain in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

On Wednesday morning, Morozov published a series of posts on his Telegram channel in which he said that he was going to shoot himself, asking his readers “not to be sad” and requesting that he be buried in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.

The blogger wrote that his superiors forced him to delete a post on Tuesday, reportedly about the loss of the 16,000 soldiers and 300 armored vehicles.

He spoke of Russian propagandists who accused him of “slandering the Russian Defense Ministry”. He said the order to delete the post was issued under pressure from the “political prostitutes led by [State TV polemicist] Vladimir Solovyov”.

Morozov also published his “will,” along with a statement addressed to Russia’s chief military prosecutor about the severe shortage of weapons, manpower, and medical care at the front.

UPDATE 1554 GMT:

Iran has provided Russia with about 400 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, according to six sources speaking to Reuters.

Three Iranian sources said the missiles include many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said. The Zolfaghar can strike targets at a range of between 300 and 700 km (186 and 435 miles).

Since summer 2022, when Iran began supplying the Shahed attack drones vital to Russia’s aerial assaults on Ukraine, reports have circulated of the possible expansion to include ballistic missiles. The sources said shipments began in early January after a deal in late 2023 between Iranian and Russian military and security officials in meetings in Tehran and Moscow.

An Iranian military official said there has been at least four shipments of missiles and there will be more in coming weeks.

Another senior Iranian official said some missiles were transported via the Caspian Sea, and others by plane: “There will be more shipments. There is no reason to hide it. We are allowed to export weapons to any country that we wish to.”

UPDATE 1423 GMT:

The European Union has approved its 13th package of sanctions against Russia.

The Belgian Presidency announced:

Almost 200 entities and individuals added to the sanctions list but there is no expansion to other sectors.

Some of them are accused of involvement in Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children. They include Inna Varlamova, the wife of Sergei Mironov, a prominent Russian legislator, over the adoption of a child kidnapped from an orphanage in Kherson city in southern Ukraine; Marina Peschanskaya, the Ombudsman for “Children’s Rights” in Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea; and Belarusians such as Olga Volkova, “one of the key persons involved in the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children to Belarus and their subsequent illegal adoption by Russian and Belarusian families”.

Belarussia has taken in 2,400 Ukrainian children deported by Russia, research by Yale University has found.

Dmitriy Demidov is described as “one of the key persons involved in the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children to Belarus and their subsequent illegal adoption by Russian and Belarusian families”.

The sanctions cite mainland Chinese firms, three of whom are among the companies cited, for the first time. The firms are accused of involvement in supplying sensitive military technology to Russia.

Companies in Turkey and India are included, and an asset freeze and visa ban has been imposed on North Korea’s Defence Minister Kang Sun Nam for the supply of ballistic missiles to Moscow.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted:

UPDATE 0950 GMT:

Two civilians have been killed by a Russian drone strike on Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.

The victims were farm workers travelling in a car.

In the neighboring Donetsk region, one person was killed in the town of Kostyantynivka. Six people were wounded in the city of Kramatorsk by Russian missiles, with 12 high-rise buildings damaged.

Four people were wounded in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, amid 47 attacks with 159 shells in 24 hours.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine, three people were wounded in the city of Nikopol. An agricultural company, nine residential buildings, two power lines, and a gas pipeline were damaged.

UPDATE 0815 GMT:

The first cohort of four Ukrainian pilots are expected to complete US-led training on F-16 fighter jets between May and August.

The cohort has been training at a US airbase in Arizona since October. Two other groups began instruction earlier this year and are currently in basic training and English-language tutoring.

An international coalition has pledged scores of the US-made F16s to Kyiv, with the first deliveries expected in June.

UPDATE 0733 GMT:

Ukraine has downed a seventh Russian warplane within a week, says Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk.

Oleshchuk said the crew of the two-seater Su-34 fighter bomber was killed.

The surge in downings may be linked to Russian air support for its offensive in eastern Ukraine. However, Ukraine’s air defenses have been increasingly successful in shooting down the warplanes this year, including an A-50 military observation plane and a Il-76 transport as well as the Su-35s and Su-34 fighter jets.

Ukraine’s General Staff says Russia has lost almost 340 warplanes during its two-year invasion.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: In a rushed withdrawal, Ukraine’s military reportedly left behind hundreds of troops as Russia overran Avdiivka, in the Donetsk region in the east of the country, after a four-month assault.

The Kyiv Independent spoke with soldiers who managed to get through the advancing Russian lines to safety.

Oleh, an infantryman, recalled how he was among the last to flee as Russian forces closed in on former air defense base at Zenit, southeast of Avdiivka. He heard the order from commanders: “There will be no evacuation. Leave [the wounded].”

At 6 a.m. on February 15, Oleh and a comrade, Vasyl, said goodbyes to the injured, six of them lying on the floor. The two men left with a small group about 30 minutes later, looking for a 120-meter gap in the Russian encirclement.

A few days later, Oleh told the Kyiv Independent from a position behind the frontlines, “We were just left there. We defended [Zenit] until the end.”

Two Ukrainian soldiers, speaking with the New York Times, say about 850 to 1,000 Ukrainian personnel may have been captured or are unaccounted for following the withdrawal. “Senior Western officials” said the estimate “seemed accurate”.

The officials criticized Ukrainian commanders for failing to conduct an orderly withdrawal to new defense lines.

The new Ukrainian commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi had portrayed a calculated decision as he announced the withdrawal last Saturday, “Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of the servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines.”

He added, “At the final stage of the operation, under pressure from the superior forces of the enemy, some Ukrainian servicemen fell into captivity.”

A “senior Ukrainian official” insisted that only six soldiers were taken prisoner in the retreat from the town. He said the troops, from the Third Separate Assault Brigade, had run out of ammunition and lost communication.

“The Command Stopped Answering Us”

Oleh described the worsening situation from January, as Russia’s waves of shelling, bombing, and ground assaults finally began to take hold around a devastated Avdiivka, encircling the city from three sides and attacking the key supply route.

Troops began rationing bullets for rifles and machine guns, as well as well as their food and water: “A 1.5-liter bottle of drinking water was for three people, for four days at least.”

At about 9 p.m. on February 13, the remaining soldiers at Zenit were ordered to flee toward Avdiivka “on their own”. Some left in small groups while the rest stayed to hold off the Russians.

Oleh recalled hearing his friends being wounded or killed as they tried to escape: “We covered for ours, held the defense, while ours were trying to retreat, but they were bombarded with artillery – it was unbelievable.”

Oleh maintained defense for an evacuation of the wounded from the bunker, before hopes were dashed early on February 15.

As soon as he stepped away from the bunker, Oleh saw fallen comrades. Unable to count the casualties, let alone help the wounded or collect the bodies, he avoided shelling by diving into holes from previous strikes.

He said the Ukrainian command stopped answering troops at this point, leaving them on their own.

Five hours later, Oleh’s group reached Avdiivka, only to flee again towards the villages of Sievierne and Tonenke to the west.

Oleh and Vasyl said no more than 40% of their company made it out alive, declining to disclose the number of the original detachment. original detachment. Ukrainian infantry companies typically consist of 60 to 80 soldiers.

Ukraine Brigade Insists Losses “Minimal”

Anton Kotsukon, a spokesperson of the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, said evacuation was impossible because Russian forces had breached the vital road to Avdiivka.

He maintained that withdrawing soldiers fleeing Zenit were assisted by drones to get to Avdiivka and then to an evacuation point, as long as they had a connection.

“Everything possible and impossible” was done to bring out survivors, Kotsukon said. He claimed losses were “minimal”.

“A certain number” of Ukrainian soldiers were captured while withdrawing from Avdiivka, but the number is not in the “hundreds,” said Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesperson of the Tavriia Operational Strategic Group, in charge of the frontline near the town.

After Russian propaganda video showed the bodies of Ukrainian troops, the 110th Brigade acknowledged that “several” severely wounded or slain soldiers could not be evacuated from Zenit. It said that others were given an order to save their own lives, with the evacuation routes were under heavy fire.

The 110th added that it reached out to a government agency in charge of prisoners of war to strike an agreement with Russia to evacuate the wounded in exchange for injured Russian troops. The Brigade maintains that the Russians agreed.

Videos on social media have shown Russian forces executing Ukrainian troops in and around Avdiivka. The Ukraine prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation.

Oleh reiterates, “We were told, ‘Get there [to an evacuation point] on your own’….You are on your own – you either die or you make it out.”