Published February 18,2024
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Russian troops launched a number of assaults to the west of not too long ago captured Avdiivka in a bid to drive extra good points on the battlefield, a Ukrainian military spokesperson stated Sunday.
Kyiv additionally introduced it had opened a warfare crimes investigation after two separate stories of Russian troops capturing captured Ukrainian troopers emerged.
Facing manpower and ammunition shortages, Ukraine was compelled to withdraw from the economic hub within the jap Donetsk area, handing Moscow its first main territorial achieve since May 2023.
“The enemy is trying to actively develop its offensive,” Dmytro Lykhoviy, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military commander main Kyiv’s troops within the space, stated on state TV on Sunday.
Ukraine’s common employees reported 14 failed Russian assaults on the village of Lastochkyne, round two kilometres (one mile) to the west of Avdiivka’s northern edge.
“But our considerable forces are entrenched there,” Lykhoviy stated.
He additionally reported failed Russian assaults close to the villages of Robotyne and Verbove within the southern Zaporizhzhia area — one of many few locations the place Ukraine managed to regain floor throughout final 12 months’s counter-offensive.
He stated it will be “very difficult” for Russia to interrupt by there, given heavy Ukrainian defensive strains and pure situations of the terrain.
“The situation in the Zaporizhzhia sector is stable… No positions have been lost,” he stated Sunday on state TV.
“The enemy was kicked in the teeth and retreated,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday hailed the seize of Avdiivka as an “important victory” for his troops, simply days forward of the second anniversary of the invasion.
The battle for Avdiivka was one of many bloodiest of the two-year warfare, drawing comparisons with Russia’s assault on Bakhmut, which it captured final May at the price of tens of hundreds of troopers.
Avdiivka had symbolic significance to each Kyiv and Moscow — seen as a marker of Ukrainian resistance after it briefly fell to Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated the choice to withdraw was taken to avoid wasting as many lives as attainable amongst his troops.
Russia’s seize of the city has raised fears its forces may now attempt to advance additional into the Donetsk area, which it claims to have annexed.
In the village of Novooleksandrivka some 30 kilometres west, native Vadym informed AFP that, for now, he was staying put together with his spouse and little one, born one week in the past.
The 22-year-old stated shelling by the advancing Russian forces was “constant”.
Around 200 individuals stay, however the assaults had not but pushed him to go away together with his household.
“I hope it will stop. And if it doesn’t stop, we will try to leave.”
Kyiv’s newly put in commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky vowed Sunday his forces would “eventually return to our Ukrainian Avdiivka”.
Concerns are rising in Kyiv and the West over Ukraine’s potential to thwart a renewed Russian offensive with out unlocking a stalled $60-billion US support bundle.
‘WAR CRIMES’ PROBE
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General stated Sunday it had opened an investigation after the military posted footage of what it stated was a Russian soldier capturing two Ukrainian troopers at point-blank vary.
The prosecutor’s workplace stated it was investigating attainable warfare crimes based mostly on the footage and stated the incident occurred close to the village of Vesele in Ukraine’s Donetsk area.
AFP couldn’t confirm the authenticity of the video, its location or when it was shot.
Prosecutors additionally introduced a separate investigation into stories of the alleged execution of six wounded Ukrainian troopers left behind throughout Kyiv’s withdrawal from Avdiivka.
There was no response from Russia to the allegations.
The military has already stated some Ukrainian troopers have been captured through the hasty retreat.
Moscow and Kyiv have a number of instances accused one another of violating worldwide humanitarian legislation by killing prisoners of warfare since Russia invaded.
The United Nations has documented circumstances of abstract executions of captured Ukrainian troopers in addition to torture through the two-year warfare.
Source: www.anews.com.tr