Local military officials in eastern Ukraine say Russian forces have expanded their avenues of attack against the Donetsk region town of Avdiyivka in an effort to surround and capture it “at any cost.”
Ukrainian forces have been engaged in heavy fighting for weeks as they try to stave off Russian advances on the industrial hub, and are now facing assaults from two new directions, according to Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiyivka’s military administration.
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“The current third wave of enemy assaults differs from the previous two in that they have conditionally opened two new directions,” Barabash told Ukrainian state media on December 4. “The launching of new directions proves that the enemy has been given a command to capture the city at any cost.”
Ukrainian commanders have said that Russian forces have suffered heavy losses during the assault on the frontline town, while British intelligence has said that the fight for Avdiyivka has led to the highest casualty rates among Russian troops since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Barabash said some 1,300 civilians remained in Avdiyivka, which once had a population of about 30,000.
The comments came as Ukraine touted multiple battleground victories, but also received troubling news about possible issues regarding future financial and military support from its Western allies.
In the United States, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to approve tens of billions of promised economic assistance to Kyiv to support Ukraine’s war effort.
Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young warned in the letter that without action the United States will run out of money to help Kyiv by the end of the year, a scenario Young said would “kneecap” Ukrainian forces.
The United States is already running out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks.
“We are out of money to support Ukraine” in its fight against Russia, she said.
Young stressed that helping Ukraine defend itself and secure its future as a democratic and independent nation “advances our national security interests” and prevents larger conflict in the region that could involve NATO.
She urged Congress not to postpone the funding any further. “This isn’t a next-year problem. The time to help a democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now. It is time for Congress to act.”
U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told a White House briefing that Congress “has to act now” to help Ukraine.
“Congress has to decide whether to continue to support the fight for freedom in Ukraine…or whether Congress will ignore the lessons we’ve learned from history and let Putin prevail,” Sullivan said. “It is that simple. It is that stark a choice.”
While the Biden administration has sought a nearly $106 billion aid package to cover Ukraine, Israel, allies in the Indo-Pacific, and other priority areas, the request has been met with skepticism by some lawmakers.
Congress previously allocated $111 billion in Ukrainian aid, including $60 billion that bolstered the U.S. defense industry or supported Defense Department and intelligence operations, Young’s letter said.
In NATO-member Bulgaria, meanwhile, President Rumen Radev vetoed the country’s plans to send 100 surplus armored personnel carriers to aid Ukraine’s efforts to stave off invading Russian forces.
Radev said on December 4 that lawmakers needed to reassess if the vehicles, which were to be provided free of charge, might still be of use to Bulgaria in the case of emergencies. The deal will now go back to parliament for a second vote.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military also said on December 4 that it had downed dozens of drones launched by Russia over the past 24 hours, and that an overnight drone attack launched by Ukrainian forces had destroyed a major oil depot on Russian-controlled territory in the eastern Luhansk region.
In Russia, the governor of the Voronezh region, Aleksandr Gusev, on December 4 confirmed reports that Russian Major General Vladimir Zavadsky died last week in Ukraine.
Unconfirmed reports in Russian and Ukraine said earlier that the 45-year-old deputy commander of the 14th Army Corps was killed in Ukraine on November 28
The Russian media website iStories said at the time that Zavadsky was the seventh Russian general whose death in the war in Ukraine had been confirmed by Russian sources.
With reporting by AFP and AP
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