KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday 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.”
The mayor said the situation there was “very tense,” calling it the “largest offensive” on Avdiivka since last year’s full-scale invasion.
“For the third day, the fighting around the town has not subsided, with shelling both on positions and on the town itself,” the mayor said, adding that a missile attack hit the town overnight.
The coke plant, currently mothballed, is “constantly under fire from rockets and artillery,” Barabash said.
Rybar, an influential pro-Russian Telegram channel that has good sources in the military, said Russian troops had captured an important slag heap north of the town.
Rybar also said that Russian forces had entered the village of Stepove northwest of Avdiivka and that there was fighting there, while Ukraine said it had repelled attacks east of the village.
Military analysts reported that Russia appeared to have suffered significant losses of equipment, based on images and videos of the area.
Avdiivka, an industrial hub, has been fought over since 2014, when it was briefly captured by Russian-backed separatists. It now has no intact buildings, mains water or electricity.
Ukraine says ‘holding ground’ in frontline town under attack
https://arab.news/wg5tr
Ukraine says ‘holding ground’ in frontline town under attack
- The Donbas town is symbolically and strategically important to Kyiv and near the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk
- “Avdiivka. We are holding our ground,” Zelensky said on social media
Danish veterans stage protest outside US Embassy
COPENHAGEN: Hundreds of Danish veterans, many of whom fought alongside US troops, staged a silent protest Saturday outside the US Embassy in Copenhagen in response to the Trump administration’s threats to take over Greenland and belittling their combat contributions.
“Denmark has always stood side by side with the USA — and we have showed up in the world’s crisis zones when the USA has asked us to. We feel let down and ridiculed by the Trump Administration, which is deliberately disregarding Denmark’s combat side by side with the USA,” Danish Veterans & Veteran Support said in a statement.
“Words cannot describe how much it hurts us that Denmark’s contributions and sacrifices in the fight for democracy, peace and freedom are being forgotten in the White House,” it said.
Veterans first gathered at a monument honoring fallen Danish service members then began marching to the nearby US Embassy, where they will observe five minutes of silence — one each for Denmark’s army, air force, navy, emergency management agency and police.
Danish veterans are furious at how the White House rhetoric disregards the right to self-determination of Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark. They also strongly object to Trump’s claim that Denmark is incapable of protecting the West’s security interests in the Arctic.
Forty-four Danish soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces. Eight more died in Iraq.
Tensions were further inflamed Tuesday when 44 Danish flags — one for every Danish soldier killed in Afghanistan — that had been placed in front of the embassy were removed by embassy staff.
The State Department later said that, as a general rule, guard staff remove items left behind following demonstrations and other “legitimate exercises of free speech.” The flags were returned to those who left them, it said.
