MOSCOW: Russian forces have made gains in their Ukraine offensive, President Vladimir Putin said Sunday (15th of October, 2023), including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub where fighting has been fierce.
“Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast,” he said in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday.
“This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhzhia and Avdiivka,” Putin said, praising the army’s “active defence strategy”.
On Saturday, Kyiv reported “very heated” fighting around Avdiivka Saturday, saying Russian forces had “not stopped assaulting” it for days in their attempt to surround it.
Ukraine last week said Russia had stepped up assaults on the frontline city, which lies just 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Moscow-held Donetsk.
Avdiivka has been a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since 2014, after it briefly fell to Russian-backed separatists.
It has since marked the frontline and was regularly bombed even before the offensive began in February 2022.
It would be more of a symbolic victory than a strategic one if Russia does capture Avdiivka, which is built around a vast coking plant, given that the town has represented Ukrainian resistance to Russian assaults for so long.
Russian forces now control territory to the east, north and south of Avdiivka, gradually tightening the noose in a bid to push Ukrainian forces further from Donetsk.
Some 1,600 civilians are believed to be in the city, which had a pre-war population of 31,000.
Newspakistan.tv/AFP/APP
