Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers may have been captured by Russian forces or disappeared during Ukraine’s chaotic retreat from the eastern town of Avdiivka, according to senior Western officials and soldiers fighting for Ukraine, a devastating loss that could deal a blow to the already weakened moral.
Russia’s capture of Avdiivka has emerged as a major symbolic loss for Ukrainian troops, a sign of the battlefield impact of the failure of the US Congress so far to approve more military aid, as dwindling supplies of artillery shells make it even more difficult the restraint. the line.
Estimates of how many Ukrainians were captured or missing vary, and an accurate count may not be possible until Ukraine secures new defense lines outside the city. However, two soldiers familiar with the Ukrainian retreat estimated that 850 to 1,000 soldiers appear to have been captured or are missing. Western officials said the range appeared accurate.
US officials say the loss of Avdiivka is not a major strategic setback, arguing that Russian gains in eastern Ukraine will not necessarily lead to any collapse of Ukrainian lines and that Moscow is unlikely to be able to follow up with another major offensive.
But the arrest of hundreds of soldiers could change that calculus. US officials have said in recent days that morale had already eroded among Ukrainian troops after last year’s failed counteroffensive and the removal of a top commander. Because of these problems, officials said, Ukraine’s military has struggled with recruiting.
Ukrainian military officials have said they want to mobilize up to 500,000 more people, but the request has met political resistance and has stalled in Parliament. Arresting hundreds of soldiers, especially those with battlefield experience, would make the need for more troops more acute and complicate the effort to recruit more.
As a result, Avdiivka’s decline may be more significant than it first appears.
The Ukrainian military command acknowledged that some soldiers were captured in the retreat from Avdiivka, but tried to downplay the numbers and significance.
On Saturday, General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, commander of Ukraine’s military operations in the region, said on the Telegram messaging app that the retreat had gone according to plan but “at the final stage of the operation, under pressure from superior enemy forces, some Ukrainians soldiers were captured.” He did not disclose how many troops were captured.
Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesman for General Tarnavsky, disputed reports that hundreds of soldiers were arrested, calling it misinformation. However, he acknowledged that Russia had captured some military personnel and that a “certain number” of soldiers were missing.
But some soldiers and Western officials said the failure to carry out an orderly withdrawal and the chaos that unfolded on Friday and Saturday as defenses collapsed were directly responsible for what appeared to be a significant number of soldiers captured.
They said Ukraine’s withdrawal was poorly planned and started too late. The soldiers and Western officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments that conflicted with Ukrainian government statements.
Retreating under withering artillery fire, drones and airstrikes is one of the most difficult military maneuvers, challenging commanders to minimize loss of life and allow units to withdraw without conceding more ground than intended.
Based on interviews with soldiers, Ukrainian forces were unprepared for how quickly the Russian advance on Avdiivka accelerated last week.
Ukraine tried to buy time for its regular infantry forces to withdraw, out of the city, using special operations forces and the elite 3rd Separate Assault Brigade to cover the retreat. But the units could not slow the Russian advance or take out every Ukrainian soldier.
Senior Ukrainian officials say Russian forces also suffered heavy casualties in the battle. Russia occupied Avdiivka en masse, sending in troops and armored vehicles until the Ukrainian defense folded. Thousands of Russian soldiers were killed and wounded, officials said.
A chaotic retreat is not inevitable. Withdrawing troops without heavy casualties is difficult but possible if done in a deliberate, low-effort operation, US generals say.
At Avdiivka, Ukraine appeared to wait too long to begin withdrawing, and the frantic retreat quickly became costly.
For the Ukrainians, the challenge of withdrawing from Avdiivka was compounded by the fact that Russia had the city surrounded on nearly three sides. A single paved road was the most viable way in and out of the city. That route, which Ukrainian troops have dubbed the road of life, came under immediate threat earlier this month, making the withdrawal that much more dangerous.
As Ukrainian forces began to withdraw, unverified video and open-source photos showed units retreating under artillery fire and bodies strewn along roads and in tree lines. Ukrainian military units have long struggled to communicate with each other because they often have different radio equipment. Soldiers with knowledge of the retreat said communication problems were a factor in the withdrawal, resulting in soldiers being captured, killed and wounded.
Soldiers interviewed by The New York Times suggested that some units withdrew before others realized the retreat. This put the units left behind at risk of encirclement by the Russians.
Since the war began nearly two years ago, Russian forces have attempted to encircle and capture Ukrainian forces. While well-prepared defenses and aerial drones prevented many of these maneuvers from succeeding, at Avdiivka, the Russian encirclement appears to have worked. Western officials suggest the maneuver was one reason the soldiers were captured during the retreat.
Unverified videos posted on social media also showed Russian forces executing Ukrainian troops in and around Avdiivka. On Sunday, the prosecutor’s office in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region told Telegram it was launching an investigation into “the shooting of unarmed Ukrainian prisoners of war in Avdiivka and Vesele.”
The Kremlin itself does not seem to have been prepared for the speed of the Ukrainian collapse in Avdiivka. Often Kremlin propaganda pushed through state-controlled news media drives topics on Russian social media, said Jonathan Teubner, CEO of FilterLabs AI, which studies Russian messaging and public opinion. But as Ukrainian defenses in Avdiivka crumbled, conversations on Russian social media began to shift before the Kremlin came up with new messages.
“Russia was not really prepared for this in terms of a prepared propaganda,” Mr. Teubner said. “Now they’ve attacked it, but they haven’t yet been able to launch a successful coordinated messaging campaign.”
Prisoners of war are one of the greatest morale challenges in any war. Ukraine has repeatedly pressured Russia to agree to a prisoner exchange.
As of November, the Ukrainian government said Russia had 3,574 Ukrainian servicemen in captivity.
In January, Ukraine used a Western-supplied Patriot missile to shoot down a Russian cargo plane that officials thought was carrying missiles and ammunition. Russian officials said it was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war. US officials said it appeared likely that some Ukrainian prisoners were on board.
