After months of heavy fighting in this eastern city, the Ukrainian army withdrew from the town of Avdiivka on Saturday, February 17. “According to the order received, [nous nous] “We are withdrawing from Avdiivka to occupy positions prepared in advance,” Ukrainian General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, who commands this area, announced in a message on Telegram on Friday night. Ukraine concedes Russia its biggest symbolic victory The failure of Kiev's counteroffensive last summer. Follow us live.
Ukrainian soldiers “captured” by Russian forces. Before formalizing the city's abandonment, General Tarnavsky admitted that “several soldiers” of the Ukrainians had been “captured” by Russian forces, which were “surplused in manpower, artillery and aviation.” According to local authorities, the city is largely destroyed, but about 900 civilians still live there. Moscow hopes its capture will complicate the Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk.
France and Ukraine sign a security agreement. The abandonment of Avdiivka by Ukrainian forces comes as Volodymyr Zelensky is leading a tour of Europe. On his trip to Paris on Friday evening, the Ukrainian president signed a bilateral security agreement with Emmanuel Macron that is intended to guarantee long-term civil and military support for Ukraine. In this text, France commits to providing “additional” military aid of up to 3 billion euros to Kyiv in 2024, after support that it estimates at 1.7 billion in 2022 and 2.1 billion in 2023.
Volodymyr Zelensky is expected at the Munich Security Conference. The Ukrainian president is traveling to the security conference in Munich on Saturday, where he will give a speech at 9:30 a.m. He will also meet American Vice President Kamala Harris and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz later in the day.