Avdiivka falls at last, as Russia presses along the front line

RUSSIA HAS scored its first battlefield success for almost nine months. In the early hours of February 17th Colonel General , who was appointed as Ukraine’s commander-in-chief only on February 8th, announced that, in order to avoid their being encircled, he was pulling his troops out of the eastern town of Avdiivka and moving them to “more favourable lines”.The fall of , with its giant coke plant, had been expected for weeks. Although the town is small, with a population of just 32,000 before the war and almost none now, and the withdrawal now makes military sense, it remains a blow for Ukraine’s armed forces and for its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The loss of Avdiivka, well defended and strategically located, marks Ukraine’s worst defeat since the fall of last May.