Avdiivka Held For A Decade. Then Russia Traded Countless Lives for It.

For 10 years since Russia first attacked Ukraine, Ukrainian troops held out in Avdiivka, a city with a pre-war population of 30,000 that lies just five miles northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

But now it’s time for the Ukrainians to pull back, according to one Ukrainian analysis group. “The fall of Avdiivka is not a matter of if, but when,” Frontelligence Insight explained in a new report.

There are very few civilians left in Avdiivka’s ruins, and rescuers are working to get them and their pets out of the city. Which is not to say Ukraine stands to lose nothing by pulling the army’s 110th Mechanized Brigade—which has garrisoned Avdiivka since Russia widened its war on Ukraine 23 months ago—from the city.

There’s propaganda value for both sides in either holding or taking Avdiivka. Russian president Vladimir Putin surely would enjoy the ruins as a gift ahead of his sham re-election next month.

But Avdiivka has actual military value, too. It’s one of Russia’s main objectives to fully control Donetsk Oblast—and to prevent Ukraine from ever liberating the oblast. That means eliminating pockets of resistance such as Avdiivka while also digging in and firming up local logistics.

From Avdiivka, Ukrainian troops can threaten the railways in Donetsk, forcing the Russians to find alternate—and less efficient—ways to ship people and materiel around eastern Ukraine.

If the survivors of the 110th Brigade’s 2,000 troops quit Avdiivka and retreat to prepared positions several miles to the west, it becomes much harder for them and adjacent forces to hold at threat Russian supply lines threading through Donetsk. That in turn firms up Russia’s occupation in the east.

All the same, it may be time. The 110th’s troops have fought a valiant defense for four months straight, without a break, bleeding a 40,000-person Russian force for every yard the Russians gained. The Ukrainian army’s 47th and 53rd Brigades have helped, by defending Avdiivka’s flanks with drones, mines, artillery and—in the 47th’s case—American-made M-2 fighting vehicles.

Since launching their latest campaign against Avdiikva back in October, the Russians likely have lost tens of thousands of troops, killed or maimed, as well as many hundreds of tanks and fighting vehicles. At times, it was possible the loss ratio—Russian casualties to Ukrainian ones—was seven-to-one or even 10-to-one in the Ukrainians’ favor.

But that was earlier in the campaign, when the Ukrainians’ supply lines into Avdiivka weren’t threatened by incremental Russian advances along the city’s flanks and, as of late January, Russian incursions directly into the city from the north and south.

Now the Russians are just a few hundred yards from the main roads into Avdiivka, and can strike Ukrainian supply trucks with handheld weapons.

It’s a turning point. One Ukrainians veterans have observed before. In May last year, in a grinding battle not dissimilar to that in Avdiivka, a Ukrainian garrison held out for months in the ruins of Bakhmut. They killed as many as 10 Russians for ever person they lost—until the Russians traded blood for ground and pinched the city’s supply lines.

Running low on ammunition, the Ukrainians in Bakhmut lost their advantage. “Once Russian forces managed to seize Ukrainian flanks and disrupt supply routes, the casualty rates almost equaled,” Frontelligence recalled.

Waiting too long to retreat from Bakhmut, Ukrainian commanders partially surrendered their attrition advantage and—in the process—lost credibility with the Ukrainian public.

The lives the generals wasted at the end of the Bakhmut campaign still haunt Ukraine, according to Frontelligence. “The reputation of certain Ukrainian generals has plummeted to the point where they are now likened to Russian counterparts, known for deploying careless frontal assaults.”

And that, in turn, has weighed on Kyiv’s effort to mobilize hundreds of thousands of fresh recruits in order to sustain the war effort into its third—and likely fourth—year. “The enthusiasm of people to voluntarily join the troops is waning,” Frontelligence warned.

If commanders quit Avdiivka before the Russians further close their pincers around the city, they could save hundreds of lives—and preserve their credibility.

A tactical retreat need not lead to a wider strategic loss. With the right weapons and—equally importantly—adequate ammunition, the Ukrainians could retreat from Avdiikva, consolidate their positions a few miles to the west and yet still strike Russian supply lines through Donetsk.

“Timely aid from the West is pivotal to avert crossing irreversible thresholds,” Frontelligence asserted. With more and better artillery and rocket-launchers as well as long-range aerial munitions and warplanes to launch them, Ukrainian forces could strike Russian supply lines from farther away and actually improve their situation in the east even after surrendering Avdiivka’s ruins to the Russians.

The problem, of course, is that Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress for four months now have refused to vote on $61 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine—aid that could pay for a lot of long-range firepower.

The Republicans’ intransigence accelerated Avdiivka’s likely fall by depriving the 110th Brigade of vital ammunition. These same Republicans can’t resurrect the brigade’s dead, but they at least could atone for betraying the defenders of Avdiivka by belatedly approving aid—and helping the Ukrainians to reposition for the ongoing fight.