Avdiivka “strategically important” for Russians - Ukraine Command

Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, head of the joint press center of Ukraine’s Tavria Defense Forces, raised the issue at the national telethon, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Today, the enemy continues to actively storm Avdiivka and Maryinka. Avdiivka is a strategic location for them at the moment to be able to start assault operations in the Vuhledar area. The enemy has already been burned there more than once. They urgently need to surround Avdiivka, and the enemy has been trying to do this for two weeks already," he noted.

According to Dmytroshkivskyi, there is currently a noticeable decline in the intensity of Russia’s activities on the Vuhledar axis.

"Instead, the enemy continues to shell our positions. They struck 37 times yesterday. Overnight, the enemy carried out four assaults and 122 strikes. Yesterday, the enemy lost about three companies worth of personnel, 15 tanks, nine IFVs, and other equipment amounting to 46 units," said the head of the joint press center.

According to the available reports, all this equipment was actually destroyed in the area of Spartak and Vodiane - it was on this axis that Russia ran active military operations on Saturday.

Answering the question of to what extent the attempts to besiege Avdiivka exhaust the enemy, he said that Russia was sustaining rather serious casualties and equipment losses.

"Today they are gathering personnel there, recalling the sick and redeploying including toward Vuhledar - all without success so far. We have certain achievements. These are positional battles – sometimes the enemy gains certain positions, then we will repel attacks and take some positions, too," the spokesman explained.

As the head of the joint press center stated, the enemy forces are facing major exhaustion.

"What we need is for our Western partners to supply equipment and weapons so that we could launch a proper counteroffensive," the official believes.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, from February 24, 2022 to March 19, 2023, Ukraine’s Defense Forces eliminated 164,910 Russian soldiers, including 710 in the past day alone.