Avdiivka falls at last, as Russia presses along the front line
Ukraine’s new army chief stages a tactical retreat
RUSSIA HAS scored its first battlefield success for almost nine months. In the early hours of February 17th Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, 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”.
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