By Alex Babenko, Hanna Arhirova, Susie Blann & Lori Hinnant | The Associated Press SLOVIANSK, Ukraine—One Ukrainian brigade had defended the same block of industrial buildings for months without a break.
In this undated photo taken on the front-line, provided by Viktor Biliak, a Ukrainian infantryman with the 110th brigade, center, surrounded by fellow soldiers, poses for a photo, in Avdiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine. The loss of the city of Avdiivka in February 2024 marked the end of a long, exhausting defense for the Ukrainian military. One brigade had defended the same block of buildings for months without a break. Another unit had been in the city for nearly two years.
Within a week, Ukraine had lost Avdiivka, the city in the Donetsk region that it had been defending since long before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Nearly surrounded and vastly outnumbered, the Ukrainians made the decision to withdraw and avoid the same kind of deadly siege soldiers experienced in the port city of Mariupol, where thousands of troops were taken captive or killed.
Some of their trenches were hardly worthy of the name, just over knee-deep, according to images posted to various brigades’ social media accounts. That meant when soldiers retreated, nowhere was safe to withdraw.A soldier named Oleh arrived in mid-October with the 47th Brigade. Ill-trained Russian infantry, wearing new uniforms and marching in rows, made easy targets, he said. The Ukrainian equipment worked, and ammunition supplies were at least enough to return fire.
With ammunition stocks running low, Ukrainians fought back with whatever caliber of ammunition was left in the warehouses. For every shell they fired, the Russians fired eight or nine, the men said. But as the new year began, even the coke plant felt vulnerable. The glide bombs began exploding by the dozens every day.
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. But the Russians had a seemingly endless supply of men and ammunition and weren’t afraid of wasting it. Amid the relentless airstrikes and advancing Russian infantry, the Ukrainian men saw their options narrowing with every road the enemy captured.
The second group was ambushed and turned back. Wounded lightly by shrapnel, Biliak and the other men split up into smaller groups and moved out in darkness. He had been at the same intersection, just south of Avdiivka, for just under two years. The men were still alive the next day, but during another call home, the family heard Russian soldiers: “Get up, get out, we won’t carry you.” All five were later identified as dead by the 110th Brigade.
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