In 2014, well before Russia's initial offensive against UKraine, the city of Avdiivka had a population of 31,000 citizens.
Just last year, there was still a great deal of hope that, like the port city of Mariupol, Avdiivka would become another symbol of Ukrainian resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.
Initially, Ukrainian commanders boasted of easy victories over poorly trained Russian conscripts, many of which were only lightly armed and undersupplied. However, as the fighting continued, Russian tactics began to change, and the effect was felt almost immediately.
Special forces began to appear behind Ukraine lines seemingly out of thin air, and Russia began to use Soviet-era glide bombs, gravity bombs that have been retrofitted with control surfaces that provide rudimentary navigational capability, to tremendous destructive and psychological effect.
Additionally, Ukrainian forces that were present in Avdiivka had been fighting for two years with no reinforcements and the disappearance of a commander tasked with giving orders to hundreds of soldiers.
According to the Associated Press, a battalion commander vanished under mysterious circumstances and one of the soldiers that was with him was found dead. A second soldier that was with him also disappeared.
The blow that such an occurrence would play on morale in a combat zone cannot be understated.
A week following the loss of the commander, Ukraine lost a city in the Donetsk region that it had defended since the very beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Though Russian troops were never able to directly attack defensive positions, as they did in Mariupol, a constant withering away at the flanks of defenders would ultimately result in Ukrainian forces being outnumbered and surrounded by mid-February 2024.
A source of great national pride during the start of the war, the besieged defenders of Mariupol stayed too long after the Russians gained a tactical advantage. This resulted in thousands of troops being captured or killed.
The AP reports that low ammunition, constant Russian reinforcements, and the ineptitude of commanders are all to blame for what is being called the worst loss of the year for Ukraine.
"We weren't so much physically exhausted as psychologically, being chained to that place," said Viktor Biliak, an infantryman with the 110th Brigade who had been in the area since March 2022.
Biliak's unit was on the southern outskirts of Avdiivka in a well-fortified position called Zenith. This location has been on the frontlines of both fighting Russia's 2014 offensive and the new war.
The soldier told AP that constant Russian fire, as well as no reinforcements, meant that defenders didn't have the energy or time to build suitable fortifications and trenches were only knee deep.
Hundreds of remaining Ukrainian soldiers would withdraw to Avdiiyka's coke plant after repeated attacks last fall. The coke plant drew immediate comparisons to the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol at which Ukrainian armed forces suffered under the weight of attrition while defending the indefensible.
The 110th Brigade had been fighting there since March 2022 and the 2nd Battalion of the Presidential Brigade since March 2023. The 47th Brigade arrived in mid-October.
As officials in Kyiv argued over the delicate question of expanding the draft, many of the soldiers in the east felt ignored by Western allies who no longer sent weapons, by their high command and by fellow Ukrainians.
"They just kept throwing themselves at the coke plant, leaving piles of their corpses there. Mountains of bodies and heaps of smashed equipment," said Maksym, a soldier in the Presidential Brigade. "And every time, they took the same route, we hit them and hit them, and ultimately held our ground."
The all-volunteer 3rd Assault Brigade arrived in the second week of February but was too little too late. As they arrived at the coke plant, Russian forces had nearly closed a pincer movement around the plant.
Furthermore, the firing of Gen. Valeri Zaluzhnyi by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February was the greatest shakeup in Ukraine's military leadership since the start of the war.
Ukrainian forces received the order for a retreat under the cover of darkness for the 110th Brigade.
"It would have been joyful if it had happened earlier. We were always ready to drop everything and flee from there because we had known for a long time that the end was coming. "But then we already knew it was too late, and it was out of desperation."
Russia would claim control of Avdiivka and its coke plant by February 17. Ukrainian military officials contend that most of the soldiers who withdrew made it out alive and Russia suffered far greater losses.
