KYIV: Ukraine said Friday that some of its soldiers were captured in fierce fighting in the beleaguered frontline city of Avdiivka that has become a main Russian target ahead of the second anniversary of its invasion.
As President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Berlin and Paris in a new bid to secure desperately needed military aid, Ukrainian generals said there was bitter fighting inside Avdiivka, which is surrounded by Russian forces on three sides. “Fierce battles are taking place within the city,” Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian general commanding the zone, said on social media.
“Where necessary” Ukrainian forces were taking up “new positions,” Tarnavsky posted on Telegram. “Unfortunately, during one of these sorties, several of our soldiers were captured.”
The Ukrainian military said on its social media that Ukrainian troops were being reinforced and were “standing their ground.”
Russia has been trying to capture Avdiivka for months. Its fall would be a significant symbolic victory for Russia ahead of the February 24 anniversary of the start of the invasion, and its most significant territorial gain since it seized Bakhmut last May.
A Ukrainian army spokesman said the “complicated” operation of bringing in supplies and evacuating the few hundred civilians who remained had started.
“Avdiivka is at risk of falling into Russian control,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington, citing Ukrainian reports.
Zelensky said Kyiv was sending as much support as possible to the region.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure that our warriors have enough managerial and technological capabilities to save as many Ukrainian lives as possible,” Zelensky said during his evening address.
The battle for the industrial hub, less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the city of Donetsk, has been one of the bloodiest of the two-year war.
Many compare it to the battle for Bakhmut, in which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed.
Ukrainian leaders have highlighted the increasingly difficult situation on eastern frontlines because of ammunition shortages and fresh Russian attacks.
Zelensky late Friday signed a security pact with France, after earlier in the day securing a similar deal with Germany. Both accords include military assistance and security arrangements.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the US House of Representatives are blocking authorizing $60 billion in new military aid for Ukraine.
A research institute that monitors assistance estimated Friday that the European Union will have to double its military support to Ukraine to fill a gap left by the United States.
“It is highly uncertain whether the US will send further military aid in 2024,” the Germany-based Kiel Institute said in a report.
According to its data up to January 15, 2024, the United States sent 42.2 billion euros ($45.4 billion) in military aid to Ukraine between February 2022 and December 2023, at a rate of around two billion euros a month.
The European Union and its 27 members have promised 49.7 billion euros of military aid since the start of the war, but have delivered or earmarked just 35.2 billion euros.
Ukraine says ‘fierce’ fighting inside symbolic frontline town
https://arab.news/2uy8h
Ukraine says ‘fierce’ fighting inside symbolic frontline town
- “Fierce battles are taking place within the city,” Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian general commanding the zone, said
- “Unfortunately, during one of these sorties, several of our soldiers were captured”
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
