Ukraine Digs In After Retreat To Repel New Russian Push

Ukraine’s military has said its troops have taken up new defensive positions in the east after retreating from the captured key town of Avdiivka, and were repelling Russian attempts to develop the offensive thrust.

- PAVEL POLITYUK TOM BALMFORTH

Russia took full control of devastated Avdiivka after Kyiv’s troops withdrew over the weekend, handing the Kremlin its biggest battlefield advance since capturing the city of Bakhmut in May.

Avdiivka’s fall was the clearest sign the tide of the war has turned in Russia’s favour as Kyiv struggles to regenerate manpower and US Republicans scupper attempts to rearm Washington’s ally, which is battling a much larger and betterarmed foe.

“The Ukrainian military has established itself on new lines of defence and is successfully repelling attempts by the Russian invaders to develop an offensive,” Brigadier-General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi wrote on Telegram.

Russian forces were regrouping and searching for pockets of resistance in Avdiivka, while attacking near the occupied eastern town of Mariinka and near to a Kyiv-held southeastern village, Ukrainian military spokesperson Dmytro Lykhoviy said.

The capture of Avdiivka pushes Ukrainian forces further from the Russian-held bastion city of Donetsk, an important logistics hub used by Moscow to support its operations across partially occupied eastern Ukraine, known as the Donbas.

Serhiy Zgurets, director of the Kyiv-based Defence Express consultancy, predicted Russian forces would try to “straighten out” the frontline around Mariinka and launch a fresh push around the town of Vuhledar, which is held by Kyiv.