Capture of Avdiivka
Putin congratulates soldiers on “important victory”
February 17, 2024, 11:02 p.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
According to Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, Moscow’s army now has “complete control” over the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. Kremlin chief Putin welcomes this news from the front. Losses on both sides are said to be high.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka as an “important victory” and congratulated his army. “The president congratulated our military and our fighters on such an important victory, on such an achievement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to reports from state news agencies. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had previously officially informed Putin about the capture of the city, which had been under dispute for months.
Shoigu told Putin at a meeting in the Kremlin that Russian soldiers had taken “complete control” of Avdiivka, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said. The city in the Donetsk region was an important “defense hub” for Ukraine. Their capture also increases the distance of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk from the front line.
According to the Ukrainian military, most of their soldiers have now withdrawn from the completely destroyed city. Both sides announced that the other had lost around 1,500 soldiers in the past 24 hours. However, this could not be independently verified.
“Logical, fair and professional solution”
Early on Saturday morning, the new commander-in-chief Olexander Syrskyj announced that after months of heavy fighting, his own units had been withdrawn from the city and retreated to more favorable defense lines. This was intended to avoid encirclement and protect the lives of the soldiers, as Syrskyj explained. But he also emphasized that the city, which once had around 30,000 inhabitants, would be freed from Russian occupation at a later date.
On the sidelines of the security conference in Munich, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj assessed this decision as a “logical, fair and professional solution” to protect the soldiers. “That was the main task for us: We protect our people, our soldiers.”
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday evening that the Russian army was now in the process of finally “liberating” the city from Ukrainian soldiers and encircling Ukrainian units “that have holed up in the coking plant in the north of Avdiivka.”