During the retreat from Avdeevka, 850-1,000 Ukrainian servicemen could have been captured, the New York Times has reported, citing estimates by AFU fighters. The publication’s sources among high-ranking Western officials called this range plausible.
According to the soldiers and officials, the direct cause of such a significant number of servicemen being captured was the disorganized withdrawal of troops and the chaos that took place on 16 and 17 February, when the AFU left the city. According to NYT interlocutors, the retreat was poorly planned and began too late.
Ukrainian soldiers described difficulties in communication between units, and that some units left their positions earlier than others, putting the latter at risk of encirclement.
Avdeevka is 10 kilometers north of Donetsk. Ukrainian troops retreated from the city on 17 February. Vladimir Zelensky noted that the decision to abandon the city was taken to prevent the capture of servicemen and save their lives. Problems for Ukraine are created by an “artificial shortage of weapons”, artillery and long-range weapons, he stressed.
The AFU acknowledged that some servicemen had been captured, but did not specify their number or the scale of the situation, reporting “some number” of captives.
“The withdrawal of personnel from Avdeevka took place in accordance with a plan developed taking into account various scenarios and possible changes in the operational situation,” General Oleksandr Tarnavskyy, commander of the Tavria operational-strategic grouping of troops that covered the AFU’s withdrawal, emphasized.
He reported on the occupation of positions “on the second line of defense”.
“Captives are quite a large number. In general terms, I can say that the enemy was forced to surrender to keep himself alive. And according to the information I have, it is quite a considerable number,” DPR head Denis Pushilin said.
As Bild previously found out, former AFU chief Valeriy Zaluzhny insisted before his resignation on the necessity to withdraw troops from Avdeevka to ease the defense and “level the front”, but Zelensky rejected the idea.