President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Ukrainian forces were “holding our ground” in Avdiivka, after Moscow said it had improved its position in the frontline eastern town.
The Donbas town is symbolically and strategically important to Kyiv and near the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, seized by separatist forces in 2014.
“Avdiivka. We are holding our ground,” Zelensky said on social media, sharing pictures from the frontline town.
“It is Ukrainian courage and unity that will determine how this war will end,” he said.
“Our defenders are courageously holding the defense: they have repelled more than 10 enemy attacks in the Avdiivka area,” Andriy Kovalev, spokesman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said in televised comments.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday said its forces had improved their position close to Avdiivka, which had around 31,000 inhabitants before the war and is dominated by a huge coke plant.
About 1,600 civilians remain, according to local authorities.
Avdiivka’s Mayor Vitaliy Barabash said on television: “We withstood everything, we held our positions, all the attacks were repulsed. In some places (we) even tried to counterattack.”
