Russia’s Offensive: Overview of front’s hot areas

The war for Ukraine's independence. Let's look at the following events and facts that, in my opinion, require our own assessment.

First, the situation at the frontlines. I will, of course, tell you about our command, our actions, what Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky is doing to stabilise the situation, what I see and receive feedback on, and the critical situation in a number of areas.

In memory of Oleksandr Tsebriy

But I'll start with something else: The event in which I participated, one that deeply touched me. Last night (24 July - ed.) I took part in an assault operation. I was invited by a friend of mine to the assault he was conducting. It was Oleksandr Tsebriy. Oleksandr Tsebriy, commander of the assault group of the 58th motorised infantry brigade and sergeant.

Oleksandr Tsebriy is a unique personality. He is the former mayor of Uman, a position he held for 6.5 years. His call sign was Mayor. The entire 58th Brigade knew him. Oleksandr, as you know, could have been... I don't know, anyone in this war. In fact, he was literally bringing humanitarian aid and volunteer help to the 58th Brigade in whole trains.

He was 50 years old. But he chose the most difficult profession in the war. He was an infantryman. Yes, he actually fought in the infantry. Not even in a company infantry unit. He fought right at ground zero and he constantly did the hardest work. He was always in charge of the position. He was always in the entrenchment groups, he was always entrenching. He personally broke up positions. He dug, believe me, more than any other soldier. At the age of 50. Mayor of Uman. A man who, in principle, was provided with everything in this life, but could have been provided with much more. Who had so many reasons why he would not have been there, right at the bottom. Oleksandr was deeply affected when the wave was raised in Uman recently. It was raised, as he said, at the behest of the current member of the Verkhovna Rada, Anton Yatsenko, a former member of the Party of Regions, known for his involvement in many corruption scandals. Now he is part of the pro-government coalition, doing everything that is necessary. And of course, he has resources. And now Yatsenko has arranged such a shameful provocation. He persuaded some people to make a statement that Tsebriy was not fighting at ground zero, that he was hiding from the war someplace convenient.

Oleksandr Tsebriy asked me - I've seen his work, I have many friends in the 58th Brigade - to write about it, to show what he does in the war, and he invited me. He invited me to his place to take part in assault operations with him, so that people could see how the infantry soldiers of the 58th Brigade actually fight, so that no one would have any doubts about how fierce the battles for Ukraine are.

Oleksandr prepared an assault team. He went through a lot with these people. He could continue to do the hardest work - digging trenches and repelling attacks. Recently, Oleksandr was awarded the Order of Courage, III class, for capturing a Russian prisoner in a battle near the village of Urozhayne. He captured a Russian attack aircraft. The 58th Brigade posted the story. Oleksandr received a well-deserved award. He performed a great number of feats, saved the wounded many times. He secured many positions. But it was not enough for him. Two hours before the attack, I asked him: "Sasha, why do you have all the professional military equipment and shoes for mountain climbing?" He told me: "Before the big invasion, I dreamed, I planned to storm Everest. But now the dream remains, but now I will storm the landings in Donbas, because this is Ukraine. Let no one think that if it is far from Uman, every step here is not Ukraine. It is Ukraine. I want to bring every day of our Victory closer with my work. I want everyone's dreams and mine to come true, and for this I have to go on the storm.

Oleksandr Tsebriy prepared the group himself. He led it himself. He was the first to go on the assault... I have no words to describe how sad I am to say that he died as a true Ukrainian hero in this battle. The 58th Brigade attacked a number of Russian positions last night. The enemy was driven out of several of them. The Russians suffered heavy losses. But the price of this is very heavy. Oleksandr Tsebriy is a man who was worthy of any public office in Ukraine. A man of steel will and principles. He was killed in close combat, storming the Russian trenches, the Russian occupiers, who were killed in these positions. But at such a terrible price for all of us. I recorded a video. This fragment that you saw is Oleksandr Tsebriy going to his last battle. For more than a year, Oleksandr Tsebriy fought continuously at ground zero in the infantry. I think only those who are fighting at the front understand how risky it is. This is the most terrible, hardest job in war. And this year, in his area of the second rifle battalion of the 58th motorised infantry brigade, Ukrainian soldiers have not retreated a single step. On the contrary. They repulsed the entire landing. They repelled a second attack, and Oleksandr wanted to go on. We will show a video about his last day. I want to say that we became friends only during the war. We talked and he invited me to this assault so that we could go together. I also prepared myself. We went out together and literally two hours before the attack, he told me: "I'm going to assault only with my guys, you're going to go in a reinforcement group". After they were supposed to enter the position, I was supposed to go in with the reinforcement group as a reserve to help them. But, unfortunately, it happened as it did. I was right there. I saw the operation, I saw how Sasha was wounded, how he was evacuated. I filmed everything in this battle, and you will soon see the video of this battle, this attack, the video of the feat of this great Ukrainian. I have no doubt that Oleksandr Tsebriy is worthy of the highest title of Hero of Ukraine. I don't know a single person in the 58th Brigade who thinks otherwise. Literally everyone knew Oleksandr. He lived to defend Ukraine. He recently had a birthday. He opened his Facebook page and said that he was raising money for his men. He added his own money to all the money he had raised, and we raised 1 million 600 thousand. With all this money, he bought 10 drones for the 58th Brigade. This was Sasha's whole life. In interviews, he talks about many things. He told me some things personally. In the interview, he says how the President's Office, for example, deprived him of the position of mayor, how he was told: you will not be mayor. And the election of the mayor of Uman was organised. Oleksandr was not allowed to run, he was actually removed from office. There was a whole series of outright frauds by the election commission. Sasha, you know, said so: "You know, I could have been offended by the state, I would have had much more reason to be outraged at the authorities, to say why someone is not fighting there, President Zelensky is a dodger, Yermak is and so on. I only lost my position, but we cannot lose the country. We cannot lose the nation." And so he chose the hardest job in the war. He went the way of a hero, a warrior to the end. And now his deeds, everything he did for his native Uman, everything he did for Ukraine, we have to immortalise, we have to tell. We must remember what this hero was like. We must remember the tears of his family and friends. Today I said goodbye to the guys from his platoon. The soldiers were crying because they had lost their commander, friend and leader. The brigade commander Ruslan Shevchuk personally came to express his condolences to his comrades. He was friends with Sergeant Tsebriy.

And now, after this most difficult personal story, we will move on to the situation at the front. The same mass heroism and massive feats are taking place every day on the entire vast front, where the Ukrainian nation is fighting for freedom and independence, where hordes of Russian occupiers are being destroyed, who are attacking every day.

Let's look at the maps first to explain the situation and its complexity. There are battles for major cities.

Fighting for the New York area

This is the Pokrovsk direction. Over the past two weeks, the Russians have managed to make a significant advance towards Myrnohrad. Over the past 9 days, the Russians have advanced 6 kilometres in one section. The pace is very high. Usually, Russians advance 100-200-300 metres a week. Where they are advancing in large numbers, our soldiers are trying not to give up any positions without a fight. However, the enemy is looking for weakly managed units on the frontline where brigade commanders primarily lack proper leadership skills, management experience, understanding of modern warfare tactics, are not leaders in the team, cannot organise troops and do not have time to organise, and where training is poor at all levels. There is a lot of heroism in such areas. But heroism can win individual battles, but it cannot win a large, protracted operation when the enemy attacks in waves every day, sometimes several times a day. The Russians do not spare their infantry. Infantry and assault units of the Russian army are disposable units. They are completely knocked out - Ukrainian soldiers knock out Russian assault units completely, but the enemy conducts reconnaissance by combat. They send small groups of infantry in frontal attacks to knock out the position of Ukrainian soldiers. Very often, on most of the front, these positions are temporary. They have just been dug with shovels, as there are still no strong defence lines. Or they are very rare and cannot be stopped. That's why it happened here. The enemy is advancing, and this advance is explained by the fact that they are conducting reconnaissance with infantry. The map shows that the advance is quite dense, the enemy is using infantry reconnaissance to find where we are resisting. Our temporary positions are being attacked with all kinds of weapons. The enemy now has a large number of FPV drones. The Russian occupiers have a million drones in the air. Russia is now producing FPV drones in much greater numbers than Ukraine is supplying to the frontline. And this superior number of drones has a very serious impact on the course of hostilities. The Russians are using a large number of drones. This is a new factor. But they also outnumber other means of destruction. Artillery shells, mortar shells and guided aerial bombs. After the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Russian assault groups are destroyed, they simply identify all the positions where ours are, concentrate their fire, and with drone adjustments, as well as massive drone attacks, fpv drops, strikes, they inflict losses on our defenders so that there is no one left to hold this position. This exhausts the infantry very quickly, because if a position is dug exclusively with a shovel, even if there is some kind of overlap in one roll of logs, that is, something that the infantry can do quickly on their own - even if it is done, even a deep 2-metre trench, if it is subjected to adjusted fire and drones, and drops, and artillery - unfortunately, the position is either destroyed or collapses, falls asleep and becomes poorly suited for defence. That's why the enemy is able to advance. The enemy manages to try wherever there is a lack of aerial reconnaissance assets, where we cannot control all approaches with drones, where we can infiltrate gaps in the combat order, where there is no precise targeting, where the approaches of the Russian assault groups' routes are not shot, where there is no precise target detection, where there are no attack drones that would work en masse and where they manage to make advances.

This advancement is 14 km from the city of Myrnohrad. And Myrnohrad is actually one agglomeration with the city of Pokrovsk. That is, the enemy is 14 km away from the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration. This is very dangerous. If the enemy approaches and starts fighting for Myrnohrad-Pokrovsk, it will be the last major agglomeration in this central part of Donbass. In fact, this agglomeration covers the approaches, it is a very important node of our communications that allows us to move around Donbass, manoeuvre our forces, these are large populated cities with a large number of residents. This is actually the gateway to the enemy's access to the Dnipro region, because Pokrovsk district is neighbouring the Dnipro region. So the situation is very, very difficult. The big challenge now is whether we will be able to stop it. Because these breakthroughs in the areas of weakly controlled troops are precisely the result of weak troop management. The main problem is that some units, having an insufficient level of individual training, require very high quality management at the battalion, brigade and operational and tactical level. If this is not available, or if it is not enough, no miracle will happen. This is a big challenge. Of course, we will later talk about what the Ukrainian command is doing and what can be done.

Situation in the Toretsk-New York area

Toretsk and New York. This is also a de facto agglomeration. Here, as a result of a strategy that was not thought out at all by the highest military command, a poorly organised 4th Mechanised Brigade was assigned to cover this area. I talked about this. With a very strange command, which simply did not correspond to the positions they held. As a result, there was a rapid collapse of defence at the command level. The enemy actually captured about 50 per cent, half of the city of New York and seized the outskirts, and has already advanced significantly towards the city of Toretsk. Most of Toretsk is Ukrainian, we control it. However, the enemy has gone deeper into the city's buildings. After it finally became clear to the higher command that the 41st Brigade was not combat-ready, our more manageable brigades were deployed in this area, with competent brigade commanders. A significant number of units are now fighting in New York and Toretsk. I'll just mention the 32nd Mechanised Brigade and the 53rd Mechanised Brigade. These brigades had a major crisis of combat capability. The personnel are well aware of this. I must admit that there was a mistake in the decision to appoint the command of the 41st Brigade. But Oleksandr Syrsky transferred the 53rd and 32nd to this area. He appointed both of these brigade commanders. The commander of the 32nd Brigade is Kovtsur. He is a former commander of the 22nd separate battalion of the 92nd brigade. He is a very competent combat leader and commander. The 53rd Brigade is also led by Anatoliy Kozel. He is also a very competent Ukrainian commander, appointed recently. He joined the brigade with his team. And the brigade demonstrates much higher combat capability even in such difficult conditions. The problem is that the 32nd and 53rd Brigades and some other units, the 95th Air Assault Brigade, also a very capable Ukrainian unit, are now engaged in a battle for New York and Toretsk - in fact, it is a counter-battle. That is, instead of a planned offensive, because of such mistakes, they are now closing the breakthrough that could have never happened if the 24th Mechanised Brigade had been defending this area. We must finally start drawing conclusions from this. And now these two brigades have stopped the Russian offensive in a counterattack, with great difficulty and losses. We were literally 2-3 days away from losing two cities at once. The enemy could have captured everything. There are still battles going on, and the situation in New York is particularly difficult. But the front line there has been stabilised at great cost. That's why the soldiers of the 32nd Brigade, the soldiers of the 53rd Brigade, the attached units, the soldiers of the 95th Air Assault Brigade - these people are now saving these two Ukrainian cities with their courage, heroism, sacrifice and professionalism, doing everything they can to hold the frontline, to stop and defeat the Russian breakthrough in these areas. For the past 10 days, the enemy has not been able to advance and capture any significant territory in Toretsk and New York. Today was the first day when the enemy did not conduct massive sustained infantry attacks. The losses are so great that with good command and heroic resistance of Ukrainian soldiers, the enemy can be destroyed and attacks can be stopped. Today, there were attacks in many areas, but in many areas there were no such attacks. All this is the result of the courageous professional actions of Ukrainian soldiers. We hope that this direction will continue to be strengthened, that the chaos of the first days will be contained, that the enemy will be defeated and prevented from advancing further.

Urozhayne-Staromayorske district

This is where I have been for the last two days. Oleksandr Tsebriy died as a hero in this area. Very heavy fighting is going on here. The soldiers of the 58th Motorised Infantry Brigade, Ruslan Shevchuk, a reputable brigadier, are fighting terrible battles for these positions. The Russians managed to capture the village of Urozhayne at a great cost. The enemy's losses are simply enormous. Our units withdrew to pre-equipped positions, because further exchange in this village was not profitable for us, and the lives of every soldier here are valued. This is an absolutely reasonable decision. All the soldiers on the ground say so. Urozhayne was captured in the area, but in the village itself and on the approaches within a few kilometres of Urozhayne, the 58th Brigade destroyed about 100 units of Russian armoured vehicles. The number of Russian soldiers and infantry killed there is incalculable. Urozhayne was almost completely destroyed. It is even impossible to find basements suitable for defence. The armoured positions are simply broken. There is nowhere to gain a foothold. That's why Russian assault groups have entered. Now they are simply being destroyed there, because the enemy also has nowhere to hide. That is, there are heavy battles here, but the 58th Brigade and the units that are capable are doing their best. At the moment, the enemy has no opportunity to break through.

North. Vovchansk district

The Russians are trying to push further into the urban area. The main problem is the same - Russian air bombs and artillery are simply demolishing the city. It practically no longer exists. It is no longer possible to hold such positions. The enemy is gaining ground there simply at the cost of huge losses. But that central area, a significant part of it, where our troops took up defence on the night of 12-13 May, after the Russian offensive began, is still being stubbornly held by our soldiers - soldiers of the 57th Motorised Infantry Brigade, 36th Marine Brigade, attached units, special forces, 33rd separate assault battalion. We must pay tribute to these heroes. So there are very heavy battles here and the fighting continues. The enemy is not succeeding - on 12 May they started storming Vovchansk. They still have not managed to capture the small town. They are advancing only through complete destruction.

Thanks to our colleagues at DeepState. DeepState is, of course, the key source of information about the situation right now. Every commander in this war is watching the DeepState channel, because everyone knows that if you can get not quite verified data from some headquarters, but the data from the DeepState channel is reliably verified.

The situation in the north of Kharkiv region

Very heavy fighting is taking place here. The Russian command continues its attempts to threaten Kharkiv directly, to advance on Kharkiv and to gain a foothold along the border. Between 10 and 12 May, the enemy managed to advance there, entering Vovchansk, Starytsia, entering the village of Lukianets and capturing the village of Hlyboke, and approaching the village of Liptsi. The village of Liptsy is of great operational importance. It is a very convenient foothold, an area for amassing and launching an offensive directly on Kharkiv, and a line for the deployment of Russian long-range artillery. However, on 12 May, units of the 13th National Guard Brigade "Charter" began deploying at night at this point, and the enemy failed to capture Liptsy. Several landings were recaptured from the Russians. The units of the 18th Army Corps of the Russian Armed Forces throw all their strength and fresh infantry units of the 7th and 9th motorised rifle regiments into the battle, but the enemy fails to advance. On the contrary. Step by step, they manage to drive him out. Therefore, the enemy failed to seize the initiative in Liptsi. In the area of Hlyboke village, the soldiers of the 92nd Assault Brigade are fighting and also do not allow the enemy to wake up a single step. The positions of the 42nd Mechanised Brigade are in the vicinity of Starytsia. Our soldiers are also preventing the enemy from advancing. Therefore, the situation in the north of Kharkiv region is completely stabilised. There are no immediate risks of any Russian breakthroughs, the capture of Vovchansk, the crossing to the other side, the risk of capturing Liptsy and threatening Kharkiv, but the fact that there is no significant movement there does not mean that there are no heavy battles. The Russians are throwing significant forces into the battle. But they have faced very good resistance from Ukrainian units there. We have the advantage in command and control there.

Kupiansk district

Here, the enemy continues to attack along the entire frontline. They are trying to advance to the area of Sinkivka, reach the Oskol line along the Oskol River and capture the town of Kupyansk. For the Russians, this is a very important foothold, a line to launch a further offensive into the Kharkiv region. There are also very, very heavy battles for every metre. Ukrainian soldiers are doing their best to stop the enemy.

Stelmakhivka

Everyone has seen the video of a soldier of the First Brigade of the National Guard, call sign Hunter, fighting with his unit for the landing zone that controls the village of Stelmakhivka. Incredible footage. On the brigade's page, Storm. They made a brilliant story, an interview with Hunter. He is now a platoon commander. At that moment, a soldier who is good with small arms, trained, motivated, is engaged in close combat with Russians in the landings at a distance of just a few metres. He turns on his Gopro camera in cold blood - he's in close combat. There is one of the battles - two Russians jump right into our trench and throw grenades at the dugout with our soldiers from a distance of just 3-4 metres. Hunter jumps out, grabs an assault rifle, shoots one Russian at point blank range, from one edge of the bunker. Then he moves over and shoots the second one - in the same way, from almost a metre away. That's the kind of heavy fighting that goes on in the woods. Now the National Guard fighters are fighting very hard. The units of the 43rd Brigade. There are also heavy battles in the area of Ivanivka, and the enemy is trying to constrain our troops everywhere.

Borova

The only area in this Kupyansk direction is Borova - in July the situation there changed. In June, I wrote about how the enemy was continuously attacking the 3rd Assault Brigade in the defence area, about 20 km away, trying to break through to Borova and destroy the 3rd Assault Brigade, and suffered terrible losses. In July, the Russians completely stopped their offensive in this area. After 6 weeks of continuous contact battles, the 3rd Assault Brigade knocked out just two Russian regiments with huge losses, and the Russians ran out of steam in this area. They are now advancing with significant forces, soldiers of the 77th Airmobile Brigade, soldiers of the 66th Mechanised Brigade - they are also fighting very hard to the north and south of Borova, covering this Oskil River line. Very heavy fighting is going on. The enemy managed to advance north of Borova. But it was also very difficult at a high cost. But, despite everything, this Oskil line is being held and defended. The situation there is also very acute and requires maximum attention.

Spirne district

Here the enemy is trying to cover from two sides. Not everything is visible on the map, but this wedge south of Spirne is very dangerous. Spirne is in a semi-circumscribed area. The 3rd Battalion of the Rubizh Brigade, the Svoboda Battalion, a battalion with a volunteer core, is fighting heroically here. Petro Kuzyk is the battalion commander. "The soldiers are working in incredibly difficult conditions, repelling attacks in a semi-surrounded environment. The situation here is more complicated. The enemy is not only covering deeper, south of Spirne, our positions, but has also moved in to the north. And in the centre, the Svoboda battalion is fighting heroically in a semi-circumscribed area. This situation and this area require a personal visit by the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to see with their own eyes how the units accurately reflect the situation in their defence areas. Whether this is true. Whether there are no lies in the reports. Whether someone else's lies, poor command, lack of reliable defence lines, fire organisation, destruction, and enemy intelligence are not being substituted by false reports. And then these reports have to be corrected by the soldiers of other units through their heroism and efforts. The 'Svoboda' battalion and the 'Rubizh' brigade as a whole, two battalions of the 'Rubizh' brigade, held Spirne for a long time. For a year and a half. Even at that time, the situation there was just unrealistically difficult. And now it is critical not because the Svoboda battalion is not holding it. It's because of the deep coverage from the flanks. And this is not what someone should finally respond to. Because the enemy knows this. Even if we don't mention it in our reports, they know the situation. I talk to the soldiers. The main thing is that they do not say: take us away from here. They say: give us ammunition and communications, because we cannot fight in a cordoned-off area. It's ineffective when the enemy hits communications, when the enemy advances on the flanks. War is not about a point on the map, not about a name. The war is about ensuring that our troops effectively destroy the enemy on the defence lines. And if we drive ourselves into a semi-defensive position with false reports, we prevent our troops from fulfilling these two main tasks of modern warfare: maximum destruction of the enemy and maximum preservation of our lives. And all this is because of lies in the reports. That is why I am asking the new commander of the Khortytsia Joint Forces Operation Centre, General Hnatov, to pay attention to this area personally. I know that the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, personally visits the frontline, almost every brigade. I would ask him to pay attention if he has the opportunity. Even if you don't visit, you should receive a report on the situation from the command of the Svoboda battalion, the 2nd battalion of the 4th Rapid Response Brigade of the National Guard, so that you can get honest reports on what is really happening on the flanks of Spirne. A feat must be made in order to destroy the enemy and save your own. This is the victory in the war. Not a lie.

Siversk district

The enemy's advance is of concern here. Enemy attacks in the area of Verkhnyaya Kamenka. The Russians are advancing. This is not so noticeable on the maps yet. The enemy is advancing, and here again, we need an objective assessment of the situation, honest reports, and we need troops not to be engaged in counterattacks, but to be able to gain a foothold in favourable positions. Of course, this is not comparable to the intensity of the fighting in the areas I mentioned, such as Toretsk-New York, but there is progress. We also need to pay serious attention to this.

Kurakhove district

The enemy also continues to attack there. The soldiers of the 79th Air Assault Brigade are making history in a unique way. The 79th Air Assault Brigade is simply repelling massive attacks. At the moment, these are the most massive armoured vehicle attacks taking place at the front. However, the 70th Brigade, other units, the 46th Airmobile Brigade and the attached units are a real story of heroism. You can feel the quality of our troops' management there.

In the Kurakhove direction, the enemy also continues its offensive, trying to advance step by step.

Situation in the Pokrovsk direction

In addition to this section of the breakthrough directly to Myrnohrad, the enemy is very actively advancing in the area of our 47th Mechanised Brigade, 68th Infantry Brigade and 110th Mechanised Brigade. Very heavy fighting is taking place. We have heavy losses there. The enemy's losses are higher, but they manage to advance. The situation is very difficult. The enemy has a tactical initiative, a significant advantage in forces. The troops are very exhausted. In most of the positions where the fighting is taking place, there are no equipped borders, positions or defence lines that would reduce losses from the enemy's massive firepower. But our units are doing their best. And the Russians' losses are also enormous. But they continue to move forward. The overall situation in the Pokrovske sector is very difficult. I should also mention something that is not marked on the map - the fighting for another town of Krasnohorivka. The enemy has captured most of Krasnohorivka. Our troops are fighting on the outskirts. There are problems in the management of the 59th motorised infantry brigade. The commander there has no experience and real problems in management. In contrast, we see that weaker units, such as the 32nd and 53rd Brigades in the Toretsk-New York area, are being thrown into the counterattack, but thanks to competent command, they are managing to stabilise the situation. So, how important is the figure of a brigade commander in war? To what extent is this still a position on which the situation at the front depends. Not only the operational, but also the strategic position of our troops. Now, because of problems at the level of the highest command, we have weak management, weak controllability, we have the breakthrough of Toretsk, the breakthrough to New York and the capture of most of Krasnohorivka. This is the price of weak governance. And vice versa, where there is real, high-quality control, real commanders, combat leaders, the enemy is stopped. We can see the 58th Brigade's exploits. There is a huge defence line there. We see the exploits of the 32nd Brigade, the 53rd Brigade, the 95th Air Assault Brigade - what they are doing now to save Toretsk and New York for Ukraine. I didn't mention it, but it's also important to mention Chasiv Yar. The 24th Mechanised Brigade has been redeployed to Chasiv Yar. Also, Brigadier Ivan Golishevsky is a man who is respected in the brigade, who is a combat leader and has experience. The brigade was thrown right out of the gate into a battle, into an oncoming battle, into unprepared positions. Now it is stopping the enemy's advance on Chasiv Yar. In Chasov Yar itself, the soldiers of the 5th Assault Brigade, the brigadier, call sign Oscar, is a man who is respected in the brigade, and manages to repel Russian attacks despite the enemy's great superiority.

The need to improve the command and control and organisation of the Defence Forces

So, in general, I spoke very briefly about the entire front line. Now I want to talk about the actions of the command. I rely solely on feedback from the commanders of our brigades and formations fighting in different areas. In general, most brigade commanders communicate directly with Oleksandr Syrsky, noting that he regularly visits brigade headquarters, gets to know the situation personally, and understands the situation. There was a scandal recently. Syrsky arrived at the headquarters of one brigade, and there was no brigade commander or chief of staff at the command post. Syrsky looked at the situation - on the table, on the working map, it turned out that it was slightly different from the reports - and there were serious showdowns going on. Who would have expected the Commander-in-Chief to drop by unannounced and see what was going on in the area that was important to him? Syrsky personally tries to visit most of the brigades. However, he cannot lead instead of the commanders, and now the lack of an adequate chain of command between the Commander-in-Chief and the brigade commanders is very acute. For example, the appointment of General Hnatov to replace General Sodol at the Khortytsia Joint Forces Operation Centre has eased the situation a little. Hnatov's relations with the brigade commanders became normal, which was not the case with Sodol. But command is not just about pinpointing the exact boundaries. It's not just about being in constant communication. It's not just about providing ammunition. Command is an ongoing process. Now all brigade commanders are saying: we need an absolutely adequate, responsible structure above the brigade. Such brigade commands as the 3rd Assault Brigade, 13th Charter Brigade, 58th, 53rd Mechanised, 32nd Brigade - there are many positive reviews of the actions of some of the commanders. I cannot say that there is only criticism in the troops. But what is everyone talking about? We need a structure. Our main problem is weak management at the brigade level. Those brigades that have the competence of a brigadier need to be evolutionarily enlarged to a division. The headquarters should be strengthened and the areas of responsibility should be made permanent. We need to make the troops permanent. This will improve the controllability, organisation and command of the troops. This personnel charade will disappear: someone comes in, someone comes out, you are dowry, you are not dowry, you are important, you are not important. There is no stability of troops when there is no coherence and trust in commanders. And above the brigade. We have one brigade, with one brilliant commander, who is actually our commander, which holds the front for 55 kilometres. With attached units, of course. This is a frontier that is bigger than a division, a corps frontier. And we have the headquarters of one brigade there, and people are in charge, because this headquarters simply does not sleep, does not eat. People do not know what rest is. They are constantly managing their own and their subordinate units. They organise the battle, firepower, ammunition, people, aerial reconnaissance in a 55-kilometre strip - by the headquarters of one brigade! They manage to do it. They are delivering results. They have a stable situation. And the frontline has been expanded there precisely because the brigade commander is doing an excellent job. But we need to approach this adequately. There are brigades of 17, 18 and 19 kilometres. These are all division boundaries. I want to say that the time has come for immediate organisational reforms in the army. No one is talking about any super-reforms that take time. It is necessary to identify competent brigade commanders who perform all tasks, who are supported by their personnel, who are real leaders in the team. They need to be enlarged, given the status of divisions and subordinated to those brigades and individual battalions that lack quality management. This will immediately improve the controllability of the troops and their responsibility for the defence line. Because in our frontline, how can we fight with operational and tactical departments? It is impossible. We have operational and tactical departments that manage up to 20 brigades, up to 20 separate battalions - we are talking about infantry only. Then they have artillery units, missile units, electronic warfare, intelligence, special forces. There are more than 100 command and control units. There is a commander of the JTF, a temporary operational and tactical structure, and he is given more than 100 units to manage. What is going on? This is a Brownian movement. Someone comes into subordination every day, several units, several units leave subordination. Someone has done something somewhere on this huge strip, 20 brigades, something is constantly happening there. It takes the commander of the JTF all day just to hear this information. So he can't even get all the information. It is an illusion that they are in control of something. Our operational and tactical departments are managing in a fragmented way. They do not manage the war. When are we going to recognise this? That's why I'm asking Oleksandr Syrsky - I respect the fact that he lives the war, travels around personally, makes personnel decisions, gets to know the situation, looks at how to distribute ammunition. But order beats class. This is a truth. You can't manage hundreds of brigades, thousands of companies, battalions and detachments manually. It is impossible to do it effectively. In addition to the fact that the enemy has an advantage in the number of people, in the number of weapons, we are creating an advantage for the Russians in terms of operational and strategic management with our disorder and chaos. We can fix this. We need to put division headquarters under the command of those brigade commanders who already hold large swathes of territory and have authority. We need to strengthen these headquarters with officers. We have a lot of officers who are complete. And then there will be no weakly managed brigades, no separate battalions, and this will improve the controllability of all troops. Instead of constantly fighting with these dowries - in and out, in and out. This is inefficient. Positions are lost due to lack of control. First and foremost. It is not because soldiers ran away somewhere, as is often written in reports to absolve senior commanders of responsibility. It is not clear who organises the fire, who organises the reconnaissance. It is not clear what the rotation is. I want to tell you that in Krasnohorivka, I personally know an infantry soldier from one of the TRO battalions - he was put on a position and stayed there without rotation for 38 days with his comrades. It was an active combat zone. Constant shelling, constant enemy. 38 days at the position. I'm not talking about any domestic amenities there. Water, food, nutrition, ammunition, support - how? Sporadically. How can we wonder why we are losing houses and streets in Krasnohorivka? Because with such management, soldiers and infantry are made disposable. A person who has been held in this position for 38 days, who has honestly performed the task, who has not surrendered, who has not been killed, who has not been under fire, under a drone, under a grenade, loses his combat capability for a long time. Instead of conducting reasonable rotations and maintaining combat capability. I personally evaluate the competence and efficiency of infantry commanders by the duration of their rotations during intense combat operations. I don't need to say anything else. If the rotation is up to 3 days in the warm season, the brigade commander is trying to maintain combat capability. And many fighters have it, but if the rotation is 5 days, the brigade is in big trouble. When the rotation is 38 days, combat capability is fragmented, sporadic and not guaranteed at all. Why do we need to change the organisational structure? We need to have not just brigades, but divisions and permanent corps. So that not only the brigade commander thinks about how many people he has on the ground. It should be the responsibility and task of those who have to control him - the division commander and the corps commander. They should be responsible for the people, weapons and defence line at the same time. And our JTFs and JFOs are now temporary structures that are responsible for what? For the stripes on the map and for sending out reports. If a position is lost, what does the JTF do? Does it send reserves? Does it help the brigade commander organise the battle? No. He writes: restore the position. Sometimes it can be written 2 or 3 times. This is some kind of bureaucracy and a paper army. Let's change this already. If you look at the military history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there is not a single mass war or mobilised large ground army where there were no formations and associations at the operational and strategic level. That is, there would be no divisions, corps and armies. Every major army in NATO countries - look at France, look at the United States now. France is about our size. Look at Poland. A division, a corps. Not because they came up with something original. This is military history. The experience of mankind. And only the Ukrainian army, one of a kind in world history, has been at war for 10 years, in the third year of a full-scale invasion, and we have no divisions, no corps, no armies. That is, there are no stable structures at the operational and tactical level. There are no large operational divisional-level formations, no corps-level formations, no army-level formations. This is absurd. Later, military historians will point fingers and write in monographs that the level of command and control in Ukraine was so weak, and that neither the position of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief nor the successive Commanders-in-Chief of the Armed Forces could change this failure. A real failure in the organisation of command and control of the troops. Why do we want to go down in history with such a stain? Let's fix it now. I am addressing Oleksandr Syrskyi. I cannot pay attention to the position of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. It is a body for recording evening addresses. There is no responsibility there and no desire to change anything. We went out, the president recorded the address, held a meeting, listened to the situation. And what? Nothing has changed. So I appeal to the ambitions and respect of Oleksandr Syrsky. You understand that it is impossible to administer each brigade at the front 24/7 manually. This should be done by commanders who have been through the war. Those who have authority, abilities and the necessary combat qualities. Therefore, improving command and control and organisation is the only thing we can do. We need divisions and corps to hold the lines. Then the division and corps will be able to better manoeuvre replenishment, better organise training of personnel, replenishment, and mobilisation. This will be a step forward. We don't have more shells, missiles, bombs than Russia. We do not have more forces, more personnel than Russia. Not yet. In order to withstand this invasion, to stop the front, we need someone to prepare replenishment, to rotate troops properly internally. We need someone to be responsible for the construction of defence lines and to allocate troops and people for this. And not just digging with an excavator for a tick and a photo report, as you can often see in Donetsk region. They took a field, someone planted corn somewhere, and dug it up somewhere in the centre of the field. Who needs this imitation? The troops, the positions that are in the open field, which are protected and not disguised in the planting, are not occupied at all. Half of the construction that I saw at the frontline is just for show, a show and imitation, because there are no those responsible. There are those responsible for money, for spending. But there is no one responsible for ensuring that the troops can do it. That's why we need corps. We need divisions. Then we will have the strength. Not a brigade commander who always lacks infantry. He will be given a brigade, a battalion restoration. He will withdraw his brigade, battalion, it will be replenished, it will help equip the positions. There will be people there who cannot storm or hold positions, they will be able to dig in peace. They will be engaged in combat training, engineering training, and will be responsible for their defence line, the rear line. Then, if there is a retreat somewhere, the troops will take up familiar, understandable positions.

The lack of management organisational structures is the main problem of the war

Therefore, our only advantage is the speed of change, the speed of reaction. More flexibility. To do this, we need to have the tools - adequate management organisational structures. This is the main problem of war. If the supreme commander-in-chief does not realise this, Oleksandr Syrsky should. Because while his personal intervention has so far brought about positive changes in some places, we have examples of not entirely positive decisions, such as the 41st Brigade. Or the 59th Brigade - there are no decisions. How long can we manage in manual mode, Alexander Stanislavovich? When will there be action? This is not my personal question. I think you understand that if you ask any adequate brigade commander you talk to, they will tell you the same thing. I am talking about issues that are very important in the army. Because our army is motivated and is not going to give in to the Russians. We need to make better use of our strengths. This requires organisation and management. We cannot delay these changes.

Questions from the audience:

The situation in Krynky

In Krynky, our units withdrew. Now the fight is not on the left bank of the Dnipro, but for the islands. But Krynky and the losses that became known because of Krynky are the subject of a separate broadcast. I cannot talk about Krynky for a very long time now. There are no breakthroughs there. There is no fighting in Krynky. Our troops have withdrawn from there. And I think it's very good, but very tragic that it happened so late. We should have withdrawn from that area earlier, as we can see from the terrible numbers of casualties in the Krynky battles. We will definitely talk about this later, in the next stream in the near future.

I am very grateful to all of you for your support. In my opinion, what is happening at the frontline is beyond the concepts of honour, conscience and human will. What the Ukrainian soldiers are doing, well aware of the enemy's superiority, and yet they continue to do what they can, destroying the Russians, inflicting huge losses on them, selling every metre at a high price, even where the enemy manages to break through. This is an incredible feat of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian nation. This is what makes me believe in victory. And I want to say that for the sake of those people who give their lives every day at the front, we must not retreat. We must become stronger. No death should be forgotten and no death should be in vain. We have to do everything to improve ourselves, to save as many of our people as possible and to destroy as many enemy troops as possible.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to a great personality, a man whom I had the honour of meeting and spending the last day of his life with. Oleksandr Tsebriy was the mayor of Uman for 6.5 years. A man of honour. A man whom I will never forget and for whose perpetuation I will do a lot. Oleksandr is a model of a citizen, a model of a warrior, a model of a Ukrainian infantryman. To the memory of Oleksandr Tsebriy, to the memory of all those who are not watching our broadcast today - respect to all those who are in the trenches, who cannot switch on and watch. We must do everything to win this war. I am confident that this victory is in the hands of our people, our nation, our soldiers. Thank you for the broadcast. Glory to Ukraine!

Yurii Butusov, Censor.NET