Avdiivka falls to Russian forces: 'A symbolic and demoralising defeat for the Ukrainians'
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00:00 The Russian takeover of Avdivka is the country's biggest battlefield win in months
00:05 and Ukrainian soldiers were reported to have been holed up in that plant.
00:09 Well for the latest on all of this let's bring in Gulliver Craig, our Ukraine correspondent.
00:15 He joins us now from the city of Druzhkivka which is also in the east of Ukraine.
00:19 Gulliver, it's good to talk to you today.
00:21 Just give us a sense of where you are in relation to Avdivka, in relation to the front line
00:27 and the mood among Ukrainian soldiers there.
00:30 Well I think it's about 55 kilometers to the south of Avdivka so we're some way from
00:38 that front line. The soldiers who one meets in Druzhkivka are usually soldiers who are deployed
00:45 in the area around Bakhmut to the south and the north of Bakhmut. Soldiers who I spoke to this
00:49 morning had been fighting in that area and they really were not mincing their words about how
00:54 much difficulty the Ukrainian army is in. This defeat in Avdivka, the retreat from Avdivka,
01:00 is a symbolic and demoralizing defeat for the Ukrainians even though it's not a very big town
01:06 and perhaps strategically speaking on the battlefield it's not of a huge significance
01:11 and the Ukrainians can be proud that since May last year when they took Bakhmut the Russians
01:15 haven't managed to take anything of any significance but nevertheless what the
01:20 retreat from Avdivka says about the state of the Ukrainian armed forces that's what is extremely
01:24 worrying because as they are saying themselves the reason they had to pull out of Avdivka is
01:29 because they are running short of pretty much everything. The soldiers I spoke to this morning
01:33 said it's not just about artillery it's also about drones. The Russians have a huge numerical
01:39 advantage in terms of drones there as well and they're attacking at the moment at five different
01:44 locations all along the front line in the east and the south. Soldiers here who I spoke to this
01:48 morning actually said though that perhaps the place to watch for the next Russian advance was
01:52 not in the Donbass but in the south of the country where they are trying to reclaim the modest gains
01:59 that the Ukrainians made this summer with their counter-offensive in the Zaporizhye region,
02:03 in particular the village of Robotny. So significant concerns then by Ukrainian
02:09 soldiers you've been talking to, what about the civilians?
02:15 Well you know here in Drushkivka people are looking to the south and in between them and
02:20 Avdivka in the front line there is Konstantinovka and there's also the town of Chasiv Yar in between
02:25 Konstantinovka and Bakhmut. If either of those places look like falling to the Russians then
02:31 people here will start to get very worried indeed. Actually the waitress in the restaurant where I
02:35 had lunch told me that she had her suitcase already packed, she was watching the news very
02:39 closely and she would absolutely leave if she thought the Russians were coming anywhere near
02:44 to Drushkivka. But a lot of people tell you that they just can't do that, that they either have
02:49 elderly relatives that they can't leave behind or that they don't have the money, they don't have
02:53 anywhere to go, they don't know how they would pay the rent anywhere else. Gulliver Crag reporting
02:59 for us there, thank you very much indeed.