KYIV – Russian and Ukrainian forces fought fierce battles around the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka on Thursday after Moscow launched one of its biggest military offensives in months.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground on the third day of battle, but municipal officials said the Russian attacks were relentless.

Kyiv says Moscow has redirected many soldiers and large amounts of equipment to the Avdiivka area, showing it can hit back over four months into a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and south that has encountered stiff Russian resistance.

“Avdiivka. We are holding our ground. It is Ukrainian courage and unity that will determine how this war will end,” Mr Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app, alongside photos of Ukrainian troops and of Avdiivka’s entrance sign.

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces said Kyiv’s troops had “foiled the plans of the crazed enemy, repelled all attacks and held their positions”.

Mr Vitaliy Barabash, head of the city military administration, told Ukrainian television: “The enemy does not stop storming, they come from all directions.”

Avdiivka is home to a big coking plant in the south-west of the Donetsk region and lies just north-west of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

It has become a symbol of resistance, holding out against Russian troops who invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and helping ensure Moscow has been unable to gain full control of the region even though it says it has annexed it.

Ukrainian forces had been defending Avdiivka since long before last year’s full-scale invasion, holding the line against Russian-backed militants who took control of territory in east Ukraine in 2014 after Russian forces seized Crimea.

Just over 1,600 residents out of a pre-war population of 32,000 remain in Avdiivka, but constant shelling rules out an organised evacuation, Mr Barabash said.

Large offensive

The attack on Avdiivka is one of the few big offensives Moscow has launched in months as its troops focus on holding back Kyiv’s counteroffensive, which has made slow progress through vast Russian minefields and heavily fortified trenches.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces in areas including Avdiivka but gave few details.

Mr Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern group of forces, said Russia saw Avdiivka as an opportunity to win a significant victory and “turn the tide of fighting”.

“Today, the capture or encirclement of Avdiivka is probably the most it can achieve at this stage,” he said.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American non-profit research group and think-tank, said geolocated footage showed Russia had advanced in some villages south-west and north-west of Avdiivka this week.

But encircling Avdiivka was likely to require more forces than Russia has committed to its offensive, it said.

Mr Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, said Russia’s attacks appeared designed to draw Ukrainian soldiers from fighting on other fronts, though he did not mention Avdiivka specifically.

Russia has also intensified air strikes on Danube River ports in the southern Odesa region in recent weeks, attacking Kyiv’s main route for food exports since Moscow quit a deal allowing shipments via the Black Sea in July.

In the latest overnight attacks, a military spokesperson said a grain storage facility had been hit in the Odesa region. She said some grain had been damaged but did not say how much.

In other fighting, Ukraine said it had thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian eight-member saboteur group to cross its northeastern border in the Sumy region. REUTERS