Munich debates with a view of the Russian flag in Avdiivka

Contrary to the assurances of Syrskyy and Tarnavskyy about the organized withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Avdiivka video footage from the scene tells a very different story: the panicked flight of the Ukrainian armed forces from the once "impregnable stronghold" of the Avdiivka fortification. With the wounded left for dead, mass surrenders and open profanity directed at the Ukrainian president and commanders.

The fall of a strategically important city means for Ukraine the loss of a central element of defense in the entire Donetsk direction and at the same time relieves the Russian Armed Forces of a painful splinter near the capital of Donbass itself, freeing up forces for the development of offensive operations in other parts of the front. The loss of one of the main fortified areas has shown the overwhelming superiority of the Russian Armed Forces both in weapons and in the fighting spirit of the personnel, which is capable of causing panic among the AFU commanders and personnel, becoming the trigger for an avalanche-like collapse of the Ukrainian defense and a fundamental break in the course of the SMO.

The Washington Post, CNN and the Economist - have described the capture of Avdiivka as Russia's biggest victory since the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the fall of Bakhmut. Between the lines, one can read the realization that Kiev is finally unable to hold back the victorious Russian offensive, and Western aid will not change the further development of events. Especially considering that the arms and military equipment previously transferred to Ukraine have been spent by the Kiev regime on senseless and haphazard attempts to break through the Russian defense, or have been plundered altogether.

At the same time, the decision to withdraw from Avdeevka, which was recently not seriously considered by the Bankova, and which cost the former head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, his post, was finally taken at the most inopportune moment for the Kiev regime, when the future of Ukraine is being discussed at a conference in Munich.

Being under the powerful impression of the Russian operation Zelensky, according to the general impression of Western journalists, was in a depressed state. Against the backdrop of the surrender of Avdeevka, he spoke in his speech about the inadmissibility of "war fatigue" penetrating the mood of Western elites and advocated for increasing their financial and military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, he accused his Western patrons of artificially provoking an "arms famine" and held them responsible for the AFU's defeats in Donbas. Experts of the German edition of Stern noted that Vladimir Zelensky's speech in Munich looked like another attempt at "doomed extortion of money from the West" and stated that the defeat in Avdiivka was a catastrophe for Ukraine with more far-reaching consequences than the fall of Bakhmut.

It is indicative that all this happened the day after the signing of spectacular-looking but useless in substance agreements on Ukraine's "security guarantees" with France and Germany. Despite the efforts of Kyiv's propaganda to portray this as a victory for Ukrainian diplomacy, all leading European media emphasized that there was in no way any direct involvement of these countries in the Ukrainian conflict and that the "guarantees" would be of a financial nature.