The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, has decided to withdraw troops from Avdiivka.

He announced this on his official Facebook page.

The defense of the city began in 2014, almost 10 years ago, when the city was liberated from Russian invasion forces.

Invaders were able to turn the tide recently when they concentrated huge forces in the area, which, after the start of the large-scale invasion, stormed the positions of Ukrainian Defense Forces near the city every day.

Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” wrote the Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment,” he added.

To try to stabilize the situation around the city’s defense, the 3rd Assault Brigade was redeployed to the Avdiivka sector to reinforce the Ukrainian troops. Its tasks have not changed and it continues to perform its assigned tasks.

It was the press service of this unit that reported that at least 15,000 Russian army personnel were involved in the capture of the city in their defense zone.

According to the 3rd Assault Brigade, the following brigades are located in the area of the front:

• 35th; 55th and 74th Motor Rifle Brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Russian Federation.
• The 15th, 21st and 30th Brigades of the 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army.
• The 114th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, a former 11th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”, is fighting against Ukrainian forces in the sector.

The enemy has already inflicted critical damage on the 74th and 114th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigades of Russian Armed Forces, both units have lost their combat capability, and the 30th Brigade is now suffering significant losses.

In addition to the endless assaults, the enemy dropped a record number of guided bombs on the city’s defenders, as the deputy commander of the 3rd Assault Brigade, Major Maksym Zhorin, reported on his Telegram channel that Russian tactical aviation drops 60-80 bombs per day. And Russian propaganda media claim that on February 15 alone, Russian aviation set a record by dropping about 250 guided bombs (KABs) per day along the entire frontline.

Also, after many months of confrontation, the command of the Tavria operational-strategic group of troops announced the withdrawal from the Zenit position south of Avdiivka, which had also been defended since 2014.