Russia is consolidating its gains in Avdiivka after capturing the town in the eastern Donetsk region earlier this week, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
“Units of the central battlegroup have assumed more advantageous positions in Avdiivka while inflicting damage on [Ukrainian] mechanized brigades,” the ministry said in a Feb. 20 statement.
It stated that several Ukrainian counterattacks, launched from Avdiivka’s outskirts, had been repelled since the town’s capture earlier this week.
On Feb. 19, Russia declared victory in Avdiivka after its forces wrested control of the town’s Soviet-era coke plant from retreating Ukrainian troops.
It was Moscow’s most dramatic battlefield victory since Russian forces captured the city of Bakhmut, located 30 miles north of Avdiivka, in May 2023.
Video footage posted on social media shows Russian flags being raised over local landmarks while Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed what he called an “important victory.”
At a Feb. 20 press briefing, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller appeared to confirm that Avdiivka had indeed fallen to Russian forces.
“Russia made its first notable gains in months,” he told reporters. “It’s now clear—more than ever—what the stakes are in Ukraine.”
Mr. Miller appeared to blame the town’s loss on perceived waning U.S. support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s two-year-old invasion.
“When you don’t have the ammunition you need on the frontlines, you’re going to be vulnerable,” he told reporters.
“And that’s what we saw ... with the loss of Avdiivka.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion aid package that includes some $60 billion in funding for Ukraine.
However, final approval of the aid package remains held up by the Republican-led House of Representatives.
Russia Tightens Grip on Donbass
The fall of Avdiivka brings Moscow one step closer to asserting full control over the eastern Donbas region—a key Russian objective.According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the town’s capture brought another 20 square miles of territory in the Donetsk region under Russian control.
Fighting had raged in Avdiivka since October 2023, with Russian forces—backed by aircraft and artillery—slowly surrounding the town from three directions.
By the end of last week, they had effectively encircled the town and the hard-pressed Ukrainian troops that remained there.
In a last-ditch effort to halt the Russian advance, Kyiv had rushed its elite 3rd Assault Brigade to the town.
But it was quickly forced to withdraw to Avdiivka’s outskirts in the face of superior Russian firepower.
On Feb. 17, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Kyiv’s newly appointed army commander, ordered Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the town “to avoid encirclement.”
Kyiv admitted that its forces took significant casualties during the retreat but insisted that the battlefield situation has since stabilized.
“The Ukrainian military has established itself along new lines of defense and is repelling attempts by the Russian invaders to develop an offensive,” Ukrainian Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said in a Feb. 20 social media post.
But Russian officials say the retreat was nothing less than a full-on rout, with many soldiers leaving arms and equipment—even wounded colleagues—behind.
The Russian Defense Ministry has also claimed that Ukrainian troops began fleeing the town—in total disorder—a full 24 hours before Kyiv issued the order to withdraw.
The ministry has also claimed that Ukrainian forces sustained upward of 1,500 casualties during the retreat.
The Epoch Times couldn’t independently verify claims made by either side.
Press Advantage, Putin Tells Shoigu
In televised remarks broadcast from the Kremlin on Feb. 20, Mr. Putin told Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that Avdiivka’s capture should be followed up with further offensive actions.The victory “needs to be built upon,” he told Gen. Shoigu.
On the same day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN that Russia “does not intend to pause or withdraw.”
“Once Avdiivka is under their control, they undoubtedly will choose another city and begin to storm it,” he told the broadcaster.
Echoing earlier remarks by U.S. officials, Mr. Kuleba claimed that Avdiivka would never have fallen if Kyiv had received the largesse promised by Washington.
“We wouldn’t [have lost] Avdiivka if we had all the artillery ammunition that we needed to defend it,” he said.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, with the stated aim of protecting Russian speakers in Donbas and preempting the further eastward expansion of NATO.
Seven months later, it unilaterally annexed Donetsk and Luhansk—which together make up the Donbas region—along with Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Since then, Moscow has regarded all four regions as Russian Federation territory.
Ukraine and its allies reject the annexations as illegal land grabs, while Kyiv has vowed to continue fighting—with NATO’s support—until all four regions have been recovered.
