Why does Russia want to capture Ukraine's Avdiivka?
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[February 06, 2024]
By Dan Peleschuk and Andrew Osborn
KYIV/LONDON (Reuters) - Russian forces are intensifying efforts to seize
the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka as Moscow's war in Ukraine grinds
on.
The fighting is reminiscent of the battle for another eastern city,
Bakhmut, which fell to Russia last May after months of grinding urban
combat, 15 months into a full-scale invasion that Moscow calls a
"special military operation".
WHAT IS AVDIIVKA?
Avdiivka, which had a pre-war population of around 32,000 and is called
Avdeyevka by Russians, has been a frontline city since 2014, when it was
briefly occupied by Moscow-backed separatists who seized a swathe of
eastern Ukraine.
Today, authorities say fewer than 1,000 residents remain, many
sheltering in cellars and basements. Officials say not a single building
remains intact.
Avdiivka sits in the industrial Donbas region, 15 km (nine miles) north
of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. Before the war, its
Soviet-era coke plant was one of Europe's top producers.
Russian-backed officials describe the city as a "fortress" with concrete
bunkers. They say defenders are holed up in tower blocks that cannot be
stormed head-on without huge losses, and are using the coking plant as a
base and weapons depot.
FIERCE FIGHTING
Ukrainian and Western analysts say Russia's offensive on Avdiivka is
taking a huge human toll.
Last November, British military intelligence said the fighting had
contributed to "some of the highest Russian casualty rates of the war so
far".
"Every day there are new fresh forces, regardless of the weather,
regardless of anything - of losses," one member of Ukraine's 47th
Separate Mechanized Brigade told Radio Liberty.
"But no matter what, they keep crawling - literally over the bodies of
their own."
Russian war bloggers, whom the Kremlin has brought under tight control,
have acknowledged heavy Russian losses but alleged significant Ukrainian
losses too.
They say Kyiv's forces can be encircled if Russian forces can cut their
last main supply line to the west.
President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 31 stressed Avdiivka's significance and
said a group of military veterans had recently advanced ahead of the
army to seize 19 buildings - a claim that, like other battlefield
reports, Reuters cannot verify.
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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy takes a video in front of a
road sign with the words "Avdiivka this is Ukraine", amid Russia's
attack on Ukraine, as he visits in the frontline town of Avdiivka
Donets region, Ukraine December 29, 2023. Ukrainian Presidential
Press Service/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Russia has been carrying out air strikes with targeting assistance
from special forces, and using artillery, drones, helicopters and
tanks as well as infantry, according to spare but regular Russian
defense ministry updates.
WHAT'S AT STAKE?
Both sides see the city as key to Russia's aim of securing full
control of the two eastern "Donbas" provinces - Donetsk and Luhansk.
These are among the four Ukrainian regions Russia says it has
annexed but does not have full control of.
Avdiivka is seen as a gateway to Donetsk city, whose residential
areas Russian officials say have been shelled by Ukrainian forces,
sometimes from Avdiivka.
Seizing it could boost Russian morale and demoralize Ukrainian
forces, which have made only incremental gains in a broad
counteroffensive since June. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
himself visited in December.
"If the Russian army takes control of the (supply) road, the
Ukrainian armed forces will evidently be forced to withdraw from
Avdeyevka. That will be a great victory for the Russian army,"
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said on Feb. 5.
Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies,
an official think-tank in Kyiv, said taking Avdiivka would not
decisively tip the situation in Moscow's favor but "would make the
situation more tenable for occupied Donetsk as a major Russian
logistics hub".
Bielieskov believes the battle is driven by a Kremlin desire to
strengthen the hand of Western skeptics calling for a cut in support
for Kyiv, citing the limited impact of billions of dollars in
military aid.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mike
Collett-White and Timothy Heritage)
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