Ukraine war maps show ground won, lost as Avdiivka falls

New maps show Russian advances in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces pull back from the key city of Avdiivka, the first major victory for Moscow since it took the embattled city of Bakhmut last May.

Geolocated footage from Saturday shows that Russian forces advanced into north and northeastern Avdiivka, as well as into the center of the city from the south, according to the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Ukraine said on Saturday that it had retreated from Avdiivka after more than four months of fierce clashes around the city, which had weathered a decade on the front lines. The fall of Avdiivka is a strategic and symbolic victory for Moscow, and a blow for Ukraine’s hopes of securing further military aid from key allies to sustain its grueling war effort.

Sparked by a Russian offensive in October 10, fighting around Avdiivka in Ukraine’s annexed eastern Donetsk region earned the city the label “meat grinder,” a term used to describe prolonged battles that rack up high casualty counts and absorb significant resources. It was also used to describe clashes in the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, which Moscow’s forces claimed in May 2023 after months of drawn-out, bloody fighting.

Russia said in fall 2022 that it was annexing the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of mainland Ukraine, but it does not fully control these territories.

Ukraine’s army chief, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Saturday that Kyiv’s forces had retreated from Avdiivka to “avoid encirclement” and save the lives of its fighters.

“Our soldiers honorably fulfilled their military duty, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, [and] inflicted significant losses on the enemy in manpower and equipment,” Syrskyi said in a statement.

Between October 10, 2023, and February 17, 2024, Russian forces lost more than 47,000 soldiers, 364 tanks and 748 armored fighting vehicles, Brigadier General Oleskandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s Tavria group of forces covering the frontlines around Avdiivka, said on Sunday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that “isolated formations” of Ukrainian soldiers had managed to leave Avdiivka. Moscow’s forces are attempting to “clear the city” and the Avdiivka coking plant, in the northeast of the settlement, the Kremlin said. Kyiv had lost 1,500 fighters in the previous 24 hours, the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that the war-torn country needed more military aid from its Western backers to stand a chance of fending off further Russian attacks. Future military aid is still working its way through Congress after stiff opposition from some Republican lawmakers due to rows over border controls in the south of the U.S.

“Keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in the deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities allows [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war,” Zelensky said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Delays in Western assistance “may lead to further significant constraints on Ukrainian air defenses that could allow Russian forces to replicate the close air support that facilitated Russian advances in Avdiivka at scale in Ukraine,” the ISW think tank evaluated on Saturday.