The capture of Avdiivka is Russia’s first major achievement in nine months, but it doesn’t leave any side looking good. For Russia, it was a Pyrrhic victory that consumed an army’s worth of equipment and killed or mangled estimated tens of thousands of Russian men to capture a city with marginal strategic importance. Avdiivka is valuable mostly as a set piece for Vladimir Putin’s victory propaganda ahead of the upcoming presidential elections.
When Ukrainian forces launch their long-awaited counteroffensive this summer, they will be up against multiple lines of Russian fortifications stretching hundreds of miles from the Black Sea to Ukraine’s northern border.