Audiivka is an industrial city in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. It is home to one of the largest coke factories for steel manufacturing in Europe.
Since 2014, fighting has been taking place between pro-Russian armed groups and the Ukrainian military. The Russian military has been intensifying its offensive against Audi Ivka since around October last year, and the Putin administration has announced to the people that seizing control of the city is an important outcome of the invasion of Ukraine. We asked Shinji Hyodo, research secretary at the Ministry of Defense's National Institute for Defense Studies.