Russia wants to fully occupy Donetsk Region by 2024 - Avdiivka Administration Head Barabash

The russian occupiers plan to capture the entire Donetsk Region by the end of 2023.

The head of the Avdiivka City Military Administration Vitalii Barabash announced this on the air of Ukrainian Radio, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"They set another date for reaching the administrative borders of the Donetsk Region. Now it's December 31. That is, by the end of the year they are tasked with reaching the administrative borders of the Donetsk Region. They understand: if you take the height of Avdiivka, then it will be easier for them to reach Pokrovsk, and so on. Therefore, Avdiivka is extremely important for them," the official said.

He explained that the whole of Avdiivka and most of the territories around are dominant heights, so the russians want to capture these heights in order not to allow the Ukrainian military to control a very serious section of the front near Donetsk, namely more than 50 kilometers of the front line.

Barabash added that the russians want to divert the attention of the Ukrainian Defense Forces and prevent the possibility of transferring Ukrainian forces to other areas more problematic for the occupiers, such as Bakhmut or Zaporizhzhia.

Thus, the enemy is trying to "shackle" the Defense Forces a little on the Avdiivka axis.

"Another important thing for them is that they were waiting for the main blow of our counterattack on Donetsk. There was a lot of such information on their Telegram channels. And now they are showing this as if they warned the likely main blow of the counteroffensive against the capital of the "non-republic," because they were the first to launch these offensive actions," the head of the Avdiivka City Military Administration added.

He also noted that the invaders needed at least some kind of "victory" and Avdiivka was chosen for this, which the enemy has not been able to take since 2014, whatever it has been doing for this over these years.

At the same time, Barabash noted that the invaders failed to take any strategic height, so they simply are erasing Avdiivka from the face of the earth, trying to compensate for their failures on the battlefield.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the russians do not give up trying to break through the defense on the Avdiivka axis.