Richard Engel is in Ukraine with more Richard.
It is a very bad sign that Ukrainian troops had
to take the decision,
a painful decision, to withdraw from the town of Avdivka.
Avdivika's out here in eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainians decided
it simply was not worth holding on to the the
town because they were out man.
They were outgunned. And that is something we are seeing
all along.
The front line of Deepco was just one example,
and the Russians are putting a lot of.
A force into this fight,
Russia has four times the population that Ukraine does.
It has a larger manufacturing base.
It has allies in Iran and North Korea that have
replenished the weapons supplies.
Ukraine is still waiting for more reinforcements.
Ukraine is struggling to come up with come up with
enough recruits and is looking now at tightening the draft
so it can bring more people from the population and
send them to the front line.
And it is also waiting for more.
Weapons and ammunition, particularly from the United States,
and they are watching this deadlock in Congress with great
concern here as it is not theoretical anymore.
The Russians are advancing on the front line and now
with just this case of Avdifka,
it is the biggest Russian advance in the last year.
So it is symbolic, but it is a symbol of
things that are shifting here in Russia's favor.