Ukraine Footage Shows Aftermath of Urban Combat in Ruins of Avdiivka

New footage appears to show the destruction wrought on the town of Avdiivka after months of sustained Russian attacks on the Donetsk settlement.

A brief clip, shared by the Ukrainian special operations forces on Wednesday, shows burnt-out, disintegrating buildings and a soldier picking his way through snow-covered streets in the town, which has weathered ten years on the frontlines. Visible debris is strewn across the landscape under bare trees.

The footage is dated January 2024, but does not offer any more specifics. Newsweek has reached out to Ukraine's special forces for comment via email.

Russia launched its offensive around Avdiivka on October 10, triggering thousands of deaths on both sides just ahead of the grueling winter season settling in across Ukraine.

Moscow has made slow but steady gains around the industrial settlement in the months since. Although Russia has been mounting increasing attacks along the frontlines in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Luhansk regions in recent weeks, the British Defense Ministry said on Saturday that Avdiivka was Russia's "main priority."

The Kremlin has mounted a "three-pronged attack" to encircle Avdiivka from the south and the north, with fighting breaking out on the edges of Avdiivka's eastern quarter, the U.K. government said. Moscow's troops are trying to avoid Ukraine's fortifications through service tunnels, the British ministry said, adding that Ukraine would likely retain control over the town in the next few weeks.

Fewer than 1,000 residents remain in Avdiivka, a local official said earlier this week, with evacuation efforts still ongoing.

Seizing Avdiivka would be a significant victory for Russia. It would allow Moscow to greatly expand its logistical operations, jeopardize Ukraine's operations against Russian positions in the regional capital, Donetsk City, and could pave Russia's path to Kostyantynivka—a "quite important stronghold," former Ukrainian colonel, Serhiy Hrabsky, previously told Newsweek.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Avdiivka as one of the "most important" hotspots of fighting.

Kostyantynivka is, in turn, on the approach to the industrial zones around Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, still firmly under Ukrainian control.

But Russian advanced around Avdiivka have come at a high price. Russian vehicle losses quickly became a defining part of the Kremlin's attack, the casualty counts also racking up, much as they did during the long-running battle for the Donetsk settlement of Bakhmut throughout 2023.

The British Defense Ministry previously suggested Russia lost around 200 armored vehicles in the first three weeks of the offensive on Avdiivka, adding in an updated analysis on Monday that Russian ground forces in Ukraine had lost around 365 main battle tanks since early October.

In mid-January, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine's Tavria grouping of forces covering Avdiivka, shared an image appearing to show a snapshot of Russian military vehicles littering the fields around the city.

There are "hundreds of units of knocked-out Russian equipment" along the front line close to the town northwest of the regional capital, Donetsk City, Tarnavskyi said.

Russian forces switched to infantry-led attacks around Avdiivka to "conserve armored vehicles following the first two waves of assaults on the settlement," the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think tank said in mid-December.

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