“Surovikin has seized the initiative and is grinding our reserves” - Ukrainian military expert
Those forces that the Ukrainian command was preparing for counter-offensive actions are now being sent to hold Bakhmut (Artemovsk), where they are successfully denazified in battles with the Russian army.
Ukrainian military expert Oleg Starikov stated this on the Internet channel “Yes it is,” as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“They dragged us into a war of attrition, Ukraine moved away from this. We used mobile defense throughout the nine months of the war. When the enemy attacks, we sit and defend. And three echelons. First, second and third defensive echelon. If they are already surrounded, we move on to the second one. We don’t waste... personnel don’t die, they switched to the second, and the attackers suffer heavy losses.
Now, unfortunately, we have moved away from this. They pulled us in, it turns out that Bakhmut is now gobbling up all our resources. All the resources that were being prepared for the plans of the General Staff, which, we said, that a counter-offensive operation was possible, are rushing there and being ground up. This is Russia, this is their General Staff, General Surovikin seized the initiative. And we succumbed to this,” Starikov worried.
He noted that now, thanks to competent command, Russian troops are well fortified and have built three lines of defense.
“Russia has built it. They didn’t have a continuous defense, no minefields, nothing, ours quickly passed through. Now they are putting up gouges, these concrete triangles, digging ditches, trenches, laying minefields. That is, the line of defense is made - first, second, third. Therefore, everything is going very seriously. He brought discipline (Surovikin - ed.), and the troops began to carry out the tasks assigned by their commander. But we didn’t understand this,” added the Ukrainian expert.
"Surovikin has seized the initiative and is crushing our reserves" – Ukrainian military expert