Ukraine shuts ‘post-apocalyptic’ battlefield town to civilians amid ‘meat grinder’ fight

A top Ukrainian general says Kyiv is planning its next move after Moscow appeared to shift focus from the small city of Bakhmut to Avdiivka further south

Ukraine warned that Avdiivka could become a ‘second Bakhmut’ as Russia turns its attention there. Both towns have been reduced to rubble in ‘meat grinder’ fighting

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A Ukrainian police officer takes cover in front of a burning building that was hit in a Russian airstrike in Avdiivka, Ukraine on March 17, 2023. Photo: AP

Published: 11:32pm, 27 Mar 2023

Ukraine shut the eastern town of Avdiivka to non-military personnel on Monday, describing it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as Kyiv seeks to break the back of Russia’s flagging winter offensive before a counterassault of its own.

A top Ukrainian general said Kyiv was planning its next move after Moscow appeared to shift focus from the small city of Bakhmut, which Russia has failed to capture after half a year of the war’s bloodiest fighting, to Avdiivka further south.

Front lines in Ukraine have barely budged for more than four months despite a Russian winter offensive using hundreds of thousands of freshly called-up reservists and convicts recruited as mercenaries from jail. The Ukrainian military aims to wear down Russian forces before a counteroffensive in coming weeks or months.

A residential building, cars and a church damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the frontline city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region on March 20, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Ukrainian ground forces commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who said last week that the counterattack could come “very soon”, visited front line troops in the east and said his forces were still repelling Russian attacks on Bakhmut.

Defending the small city in the industrialised Donbas region that Russia has tried to seize for months was a “military necessity”, said Syrskyi, praising Ukrainian resilience in “extremely difficult conditions”.

“We are calculating all possible options for the development of events, and will react adequately to the current situation.”

Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhniy said on Saturday the situation was being “stabilised” around Bakhmut, where Russian forces say they are fighting street by street.