Avdiivka: Ukraine troops leave embattled eastern town

Ukraine says its troops have withdrawn from Avdiivka - a key eastern town besieged by Russian forces for months.

The decision was taken in order to save the soldiers' lives, said President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday it had taken "full control" of the town, with President Vladimir Putin hailing it as an "important victory".

Its fall marks Russia's biggest win for months, and Mr Zelensky blamed faltering Western weapons supplies.

Almost all of Avdiivka's pre-war population of more than 30,000 people have left and the city itself is almost completely destroyed.

Ukraine has been experiencing shortages in ammunition, mainly as a result of political squabbling in the US, its main supplier.

US President Joe Biden blamed Ukraine's withdrawal from Avdiivka on congressional inaction over a crucial foreign aid package - including funding for Ukraine - which forced troops to ration ammunition.

In a call with Mr Zelensky, Mr Biden reiterated America's unwavering support for Ukraine.

Speaking at the Munich security conference on Saturday, Mr Zelensky urged Western countries to help Ukraine defeat "the monster" - as he called Mr Putin.

The Russian leader will make the next few years "catastrophic" for many more countries like Ukraine if the Western world does not stand up to him, he warned.

Mr Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

"Do not ask Ukraine when the war will end. Ask yourself, why is Putin still able to continue it?" Mr Zelensky told the conference.

Avdiivka has been engulfed in fierce fighting for months and has been a battlefield town since 2014, when Russian-backed fighters seized large swathes of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The fall of Avdiivka marks the biggest change on the more than 1,000km-long (620-mile) front line since Russian troops seized the nearby town of Bakhmut in May 2023.

Announcing the decision to withdraw early on Saturday, the head of the armed forces, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said he acted "to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of service personnel".

"Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment," he said.

Gen Syrskyi - who was only appointed as the country's top commander a few days ago - said Ukrainian troops were "taking measures to stabilise the situation and maintain our positions".

In a separate statement soon afterwards, one of his deputies said the troops had already left Avdiivka to "pre-prepared positions".

"In a situation where the enemy is advancing on the corpses of their own soldiers, with a ten-to-one shell advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only correct solution," Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi added.

US National Security Council spokesman Adm John Kirby had earlier warned that Ukrainian forces were running out of artillery ammunition with Russia sending "wave after wave of conscript forces to attack Ukrainian positions".

"And because Congress has yet to pass the supplemental bill, we have not been able to provide Ukraine with the artillery shells that they desperately need to disrupt these Russian assaults."

Earlier this week, the US Senate approved a $95bn (£75bn) foreign aid package - including $60bn for Ukraine - after months of political wrangling, but it faces an uphill battle in the House of Representatives.

Ukraine is critically dependent on weapons supplies from the US and other Western allies to keep fighting Russia - a much bigger military force with an abundance of artillery ammunition.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Thursday that the US failure to approve continued military assistance to Ukraine was already having an impact on the battlefield.