JRL NEWSWATCH: “Ukraine Map Shows Avdiivka Almost Fully Encircled by Russia’s 40K Troops” – Newsweek

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Russian forces are encircling Avdiivka, a new war map [from the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War] shows, as Moscow is said to have accumulated around 40,000 troops for a fresh assault on the eastern Donetsk town. Russian forces launched a major offensive [there] in October[, yet] Avdiivka has been the target of [Russian] aggression since 2014, when … […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s new offensive zeroes in on eastern Ukrainian city” – Financial Times

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Moscow has gambled on pouring troops, bombs and artillery into large-scale assault on Avdiivka.” “… For more than two weeks, Russian forces have [targeted Ukraine’s] … eastern industrial city of Avdiivka, using so-called human waves, airdropped bombs and heavy artillery …. Russia [reportedly] has deployed at least three battalions with thousands of soldiers in the fight for Avdiivka … start[ing] […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Both Sides Pay a Bloody Price for Coveted Ukrainian City” – New York Times

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“The fight for the battered city of Avdiivka has emerged this fall as the fiercest battle of the war. Waves of Russian assaults have not broken through so far.” “… [T]wo [city] landmarks have been the focus of furious fighting since Oct. 10 as thousands of Russian troops began a major new offensive in eastern Ukraine to seize [long-coveted] Avdiivka […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia aims to pierce Ukraine defences in northeast, general says” – Reuters 10.16.23

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“…  Retaking the towns of Kupiansk and Lyman last year near Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv was a key step in the Ukrainian military’s drive to evicting Russian troops from some parts of the country’s Donbas industrial heartland. … The focus on the eastern front … shifted … [more recently] from Bakhmut to Avdiivka, a town further southwest known for […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “No letup in Russian strikes on Ukrainian town of Avdiivka” – Reuters

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Russia’s military pressed on with fierce assaults on the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka … Saturday, [reportedly] with shelling so fierce that emergency crews were unable to recover the dead from wrecked buildings …. in Ukraine’s industrial heartland of Donbas, focal point of Moscow’s 19-month-old invasion of its neighbour. … Fighting intensified in other sectors of the … 600-mile[] front. […]

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NEWSWATCH: “New Fears in Ukraine’s Coal Country; A factory and its workers face economic hardship from conflict and blockades” – U.S. News/Katherine Jacobsen

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“… Two years later a blockade in eastern Ukraine now threatens the future of the Avdiivka plant and the health of Ukraine’s already shaky economy. Activists, with the support of some politicians, initiated the blockade in January with the intention of halting trade between businesses in Ukrainian and separatist-held territories. In mid-March the government in Kiev joined in, reversing itself […]

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NEWSLINK: “Losing everything in Avdiivka; As violence escalates in Eastern Ukraine front, one family copes with losing their livelihood in the shelling.” – Al Jazeera/Christian Borys

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“… Somewhere in that direction is the heavy gun that fired the shell which destroyed everything for which he had worked. The sounds of the intense fighting in that direction are still audible …. ‘That poor old man,’ says his 71-year-old wife …. ‘He worked his whole life for his family, and now it’s all gone.’ …. * * * […]

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NEWSLINK Kyiv Post: Residents in bombed buffer zone between Ukraine, Russian-controlled east cling to peace hopes

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

Avdiivka, a Ukrainian-controlled city on the war front just 10 miles north of Donetsk, is a bizarre buffer zone. “Neither Ukrainian nor (separatist) Donetsk People’s Republic laws work there,” Alexei, a taxi driver from the village of Ocheretine, northwest of Avdiivka, told the Kyiv Post. Locals say they don’t consider themselves part of either Ukraine or separatist-held areas and, consequently, […]

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