Ukraine withdraws from eastern city Avdiivka to 'save our people'
Ukraine withdrew troops from the besieged eastern stronghold of Avdiivka to save the lives of its soldiers, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, handing Russia its biggest symbolic victory since May.
The pullback comes after Russian forces stepped up efforts to capture the eastern industrial hub in October, leading to mass casualties and destruction.
Facing ammunition shortages and outnumbered on the battlefield, Ukrainian forces announced they had withdrawn in the early hours of Saturday.
«The ability to save our people is the most important task for us,» Zelensky told a security conference in Munich, explaining the move.
«In order to avoid being surrounded, it was decided to withdraw to other lines. This does not mean that people retreated some kilometres and Russia captured something, it did not capture anything,» he also said.
This echoed earlier statements from the newly-appointed commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky, who said he «decided to withdraw our units from the city and switch to defence on more favourable lines.»
«The life of military personnel is the highest value,» Syrksy said.
It was Syrsky's first major decision since his appointment, at a time when Ukraine faces mounting pressures in the east because of ammunition shortages, with a $60 billion US military aid package held up in Washington.
— 'The right decision' -
Commander Oleksandr Tarnavsky supported the move, saying Russian troops were «advancing over the corpses of their own soldiers with a 10-to-one shelling advantage.»
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