Exhaustion, dwindling reserves and a commander who disappeared: How Ukraine lost Avdiivka to Russia

BY ALEX BABENKO, HANNA ARHIROVA, SUSIE BLANN AND LORI HINNANT

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — One Ukrainian brigade had defended the same block of industrial buildings for months without a break. Another had been in Avdiivka for nearly the entire two years of the war, bone-tired but with no replacements to relieve them.

Ammunition was low, and the Russians conducted dozens of airstrikes every day, using “glide bombs” to obliterate even fortified positions.

Russian soldiers came in waves: First lightly armed grunts, to force the Ukrainian defenders to spend precious bullets, followed by well-trained soldiers. Sometimes there were ambushes involving special forces or saboteurs who popped out of tunnels.

As morale plummeted, a battalion commander — in charge of hundreds of men — vanished under murky circumstances, according to law enforcement documents seen by The Associated Press. One of the soldiers with him was found dead. The commander and another soldier