The spokesman for the Tavria Operational and Strategic Grouping, Dmytro Lykhoviy, said this during a telethon.
"I don't know if it was deliberate or accidental, but the NYT authors spread the Russian propaganda narrative without any justification. The sources they cite are absolutely unreliable, because there are no such people, and this is not a fact," Lykhoviy said.
According to the speaker, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not conceal the fact that some fighters did not contact after the retreat from Avdiivka. However, the number of 850 to 1,000 POWs reported by The New York Times is a Russian fake.
"These statements of Russian propaganda about hundreds and thousands of prisoners are complete disinformation that are not confirmed by anything. Yes, there are prisoners, but their number is by no means hundreds," emphasized Lykhoviy.
On February 17, in order to avoid encirclement and save the lives of the military, Ukrainian military command decided to withdraw from Avdiivka and move to more favorable positions.
Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that the decision to withdraw from Avdiivka was the right one and that Ukrainian soldiers are in need of some weapons and equipment.
Ukrainian defenders near Avdiivka inflicted huge losses on Russian enemy. In terms of personnel alone, they exceeded 47,000 soldiers, said the commander of the Tavria Operational and Strategic Group of Forces, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi.
In Russia, military and propagandist Andrei Morozov, call sign Murz, claimed 16,000 Russian army soldiers killed in the battle for Avdiivka. It is also important to note that he ran the Telegram channel 'We hear from Yanina'. Today it became known that he probably committed suicide. Morozov served for a long time in the armed formations of the so-called DPR and was a member of the Russian army.
The day before, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to terrorist leader Vladimir Putin that the Russian army had allegedly taken control of Krynky on the left bank of the Kherson region.
The Southern Ukrainian Defense Forces later denied Shoigu's statement.
"Both Shoigu's statements about enemy losses near Avdiivka and about Krynky are false," said Serhiy Zgurets, director of the information and consulting company Defense Express.