Russian forces are continuing to advance on the eastern front in Ukraine, the only one where they have recorded military victories in their two-year invasion of the country. On Friday, February 16, Moscow's army conquered the city of Avdiivka, in the Donetsk region. Kyiv has confirmed that it has given a withdrawal order to the last remaining Ukrainian troops in the city.

The conquest of Avdiivka is an important symbolic victory for Russia. The city had changed hands twice in 2014, during the initial clashes. Despite its proximity to Donetsk, the "capital" of the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas, it had remained under the control of the Ukrainian army and had become a front line for 10 years. The new Russian assault on the city was launched on October 10, 2023. It took Moscow four months to capture the city, apparently at the cost of heavy losses.

However, the Russian victory is more symbolic than strategic. Apart from the fact that it is a gateway to the city of Donetsk, Avdiivka is not of crucial importance on the vast Ukrainian battlefield, like Bakhmut, which was conquered in May 2023. In the Donbas, after failing to take Kyiv at the start of the invasion launched in February 2022, Russian forces have only succeeded in conquering the two cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, following the initial conquests of Mariupol (May 20, 2022) and the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk (June 24 and July 3, 2022).

The fact that nine months elapsed between these two conquests further illustrates the dogged determination of Ukrainian fighters to defend their territory, greater even than Russia's ability to achieve decisive victories, despite its military superiority. The nerve center of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, Kramatorsk, was never threatened.

For Kyiv, the end of the battle of Avdiivka was as much a test of military strength as a test of the tactics to be adopted by the new commander of the Ukrainian armed forces. General Oleksandr Syrsky, appointed on February 8 by President Volodymyr Zelensky in replacement of his predecessor Valeriy Zaluzhny, embodied Bakhmut's hardline defense when he was commander of the army. He was criticized within the armed forces for sacrificing too many men.

For his first decision in his new role, General Syrsky made a point of announcing in a statement that he had given the order to withdraw from Avdiivka to "preserve the lives and health of the soldiers." "I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines," he wrote. "Our soldiers fulfilled their military duty with dignity, did their utmost to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted significant losses on the enemy." Zelensky, in Berlin during a trip to Europe, had approved the idea that the military command should above all "minimize losses" of human lives.

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