KYIV: Ukraine is bracing for a renewed Russian assault on the eastern city of Avdiivka, following several recent unsuccessful attempts by Moscow’s forces to surround the industrial hub.
Avdiivka has been a symbol since 2014, when it was briefly captured by pro-Russian forces.
It lies just 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk.
“The third wave will definitely happen. The enemy is regrouping after a second wave of unsuccessful attacks,” Vitaly Barabash, head of the Avdiivka military administration, said Tuesday.
Kyiv and independent military analysts say Russia has racked up serious losses in manpower and equipment in two failed drives toward the city in recent months.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Russia’s repeated attempts to encircle or capture the city suggest its forces failed to “internalize and disseminate lessons learned from previously costly, large, mechanized assaults.”
Barabash said Russia was likely “ready” to launch its next full-scale assault on the city, but weather conditions were currently unfavorable.
Avdiivka has been almost completely destroyed by nine years of fighting.
Despite coming under daily artillery fire, around 1,500 of the city’s 30,000 pre-war residents remain, living mainly in basements converted into bomb shelters.
Russian forces control territory to the north, east and south of Avdiivka.
The frontline separates Avdiivka from the city of Donetsk, the capital of one of the four Ukrainian regions Russia claimed to have annexed last year.
Ukraine braced for new Russian assault on Avdiivka
https://arab.news/4dgu3
Ukraine braced for new Russian assault on Avdiivka
- Avdiivka has been a symbol since 2014, when it was briefly captured by pro-Russian forces
- Kyiv and independent military analysts say Russia has racked up serious losses in manpower and equipment in two failed drives
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
