The Ukrainian army has been losing ground since the retreat from Avdiivka in February due to a shortage of weapons and men, The Economist reported, citing the AFU military.
“Short of weapons and men, Ukraine has been steadily losing ground since retreating from Avdeevka in February, either by surrendering a village to the enemy or by clumsy rotation. It is now retreating at a rate of up to a kilometre a day. The fighting has intensified along the entire front line,” The Economist said.
Sergei Tsikhotsky, an officer of the 59th separate motorised infantry brigade of the AFU, admitted to the publication that Russian troops are attacking “our weak points along the entire front line”.
“Experienced fighters even fear to get acquainted with newcomers. Your fate is decided in the first few hours. Sometimes some five to ten minutes are enough,” said an AFU soldier with the call sign “Artem”.
According to him, it is impossible to hold positions, there are too many dead, and no one takes their bodies.
“A source in the Ukrainian security forces from Pokrovsk linked the AFU’s weakness to the “ruinous” delay of military aid in the US Congress earlier this year. But the most acute of Ukraine’s current problems is personnel and the failure of the mobilisation programme,” the article concludes.
We shall remind you that earlier Foreign Affairs magazine wrote that the Ukrainian army was unable to dislodge the Russian Armed Forces from its positions even if it receives new assistance from the EU and the USA and trains its military in Western countries.
