2023-11-27 12:59:56
07:48 a.m.: Threatened by Russian attacks, Avdiïvka empties
On the narrow strip of asphalt barely visible in the late night, the Ukrainian soldier rushes with all lights out at the wheel of his large armored American Humvee 4×4. “Taxist” – its military code – speeds in a light rain on the last road that leads to Avdiïvka, in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian soldiers who use it drive there especially at dawn, without light and at full speed, to avoid being targeted by the artillery or drones of the nearby Russian forces.
Suddenly, the shadow of a Ukrainian military vehicle appeared opposite. “Taxist” jerks the wheel hard, narrowly avoids a collision. “Damn, that was right!” He could have flashed his headlights, I can’t see anything at that time,” says the driver, in his fifties, a former taxi driver, and a volunteer in the Skala assault battalion. Around 6:30 a.m., the Humvee arrived in the Khimik district of downtown Avdiïvka, with destroyed building blocks.
The only signs of life: birds chirping and dogs barking. Explosions, distant or near, constantly resonate. For more than a month, the city has faced incessant attacks from Russian forces who seek to surround and seize it. Around 1,350 people still live there, compared to 30,000 before the war. Russian troops hold the east, a northern part and the south of the town, very close to Donetsk, the regional capital occupied by Russia since 2014. The Ukrainians still defend an area approximately eight kilometers wide, to the north- west of the city.
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