The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have suffered a large number of losses during their counter-offensive. There are no more volunteers in the country who are ready to take part in combat operations. This was reported by the German edition of Handelsblatt.
According to Handelsblatt, the Ukrainian command originally planned that the territorial defence units would keep order deep behind the front line. However, due to heavy losses in AFU personnel, they had to be sent to the front line. The territorial defence units were tasked with filling the gaps caused by losses and planning errors in regular units.
“As long as volunteers are used as a temporary measure and cannon fodder and they are forced to take on roles that no one else is capable of, little will change in their problems. There is no incentive for other army units to modernise them, as this would actually mean giving up their own resources,” Handelsblatt writes.
The publication notes that huge losses of personnel are not the only problem of the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian armed forces’ weapons are outdated, and many battalions lack communications equipment and transport. Ukrainian units have almost no heavy artillery and their own air reconnaissance, Handelsblatt summarises.
We shall remind you that earlier, amid heavy losses, the company commander of the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Vladyslav Shevchuk, called on Ukraine to further tighten and expand mobilization and to start mass conscription of not only men but also women.