Ukraine withdrew troops from the besieged eastern stronghold of Avdiivka to save the lives of its soldiers, Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday, handing Russia its biggest symbolic victory since May.
The pullback comes after Russian forces stepped up efforts to capture the eastern industrial hub in October last year, leading to mass casualties and destruction.
Facing ammunition shortages and outnumbered on the battlefield, Ukrainian forces announced that they had withdrawn in the early hours yesterday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The ability to save our people is the most important task for us,” Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference in Germany, explaining the move.
“In order to avoid being surrounded, it was decided to withdraw to other lines. This does not mean that people retreated some kilometers and Russia captured something, it did not capture anything,” he said.
This echoed earlier statements from newly appointed Ukranian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky, who said he “decided to withdraw our units from the city and switch to defense on more favorable lines.”
“The life of military personnel is the highest value,” Syrksy said.
It was Syrsky’s first major decision since his appointment, as Ukraine faces mounting pressure in the east because of ammunition shortages, with a US$60 billion US military aid package held up in Washington.
Ukrainian General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, commander of forces in the Avdiivka area, supported the move, saying Russian troops were “advancing over the corpses of their own soldiers with a 10-to-one shelling advantage.”
During a speech at the security conference, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised pressure on European allies to increase military aid to Ukraine, warning of the political and financial cost of a Russian victory.
Scholz told delegates that Germany’s military assistance for Kyiv amounts to about 28 billion euros (US$30 billion) and called on “all EU capitals” to make “similar decisions.” He said he was “urgently campaigning” for this in Munich, while acknowledging that budget constraints complicate the situation and the war “in the middle of Europe is also taking its toll on us.”
Zelenskiy spoke directly after Scholz.
He said it would be “a catastrophe” if Russia’s full-scale invasion was not stopped this year.
The Ukrainian leader arrived in Munich after signing separate long-term security deals with Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron amid a worsening artillery shortage for Kyiv.
In Berlin on Friday, Scholz announced a package of air-defense and artillery systems for Ukraine worth about 1.1 billion euros.
In Paris later in the day, Macron pledged additional assistance worth as much as 3 billion euros for this year.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
RSS