Butusov on chaos in OTG "Donetsk" and reasons for Russians’ active advance in Pokrovsk direction

This stream is dedicated to the situation in the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad-Velyka Novosilka direction. The enemy continues its offensive there, has made advances and is already very close to the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region. Unfortunately, this advance of the enemy has been going on for a long time. Obviously, the reason for this is managerial and organizational problems in the command of the Donetsk OTG (Operational Tactical Group), which is responsible for this direction and is unable to organize the front, despite the fact that reserves have been transferred to the area, and this is not just one brigade, and replenishment is underway. Nevertheless, we observe the same underlying issues everywhere: when you call to assess the situation, you find a chaotic mix of troops with no proper command or coordination. One battalion is attached to a different brigade, one sector is replaced by another, and the result is complete disarray. Consequently, soldiers tasked with missions face constant changes in objectives, endure exhaustion, not given information about what is happening - and the enemy manages to infiltrate, and then, as always, instead of a steady defense, encounter battles begin. 

The reason for this is that such organizational and managerial failures are based on lies: lies in reports, and they do not start with soldiers or battalion commanders. These lies arise because the OTG command either cannot convey an adequate situation to the Higher Command or is incapable of doing so. As a result, the Higher Command also makes a number of wrong decisions, and we have failure after failure.

I want to say that again now there are battles for the village of Shevchenko near Pokrovsk.

The enemy managed to enter Novyi Komar near Velyka Novosilka two days ago. Fierce battles are ongoing across these areas, where the enemy succeeds in breaching our positions due to the absence of troops. Later, it turns out that troops are available and dispatched there on high alert. If they had been positioned there in time, the enemy would not have achieved this. Yet, this failure repeats time and time again.

And just to avoid any questions: I am wearing a sweatshirt of the 422nd Separate Battalion of Unmanned Systems "Luftwaffe," featuring its official insignia. These are my friends who also operate in the Southern Donbas and are well-acquainted with the situation, as are other units I have the honor of working with.

Looking at the map, you can see the yellow areas indicating advances, while the red arrows represent enemy strikes. This information, of course, is not up to date. It is based on verified data, but unfortunately, it lags behind the rapidly unfolding events.

Velyka Novosilka district

The village of Novyi Komar is located above Velyka Novosilka, near the highway. Two days ago, the enemy managed to enter it, and now there are battles there. Our fighters are successfully destroying these advanced assault units. There is fighting there, but the enemy is advancing in this direction, the enemy has come very close to Novyi Komar. They are trying to gain a foothold there and capture the entire village. Heavy fighting is going on. And the question arises: what happened? There's one brigade nearby, another brigade, and they are fighting not with their own units, but with attached units. The attached units do not know the situation. It's a complete mess.

Furthermore, we are witnessing a significant aggravation in the Kurakhove direction. The enemy has seriously flanked our units in Kurakhove. Our soldiers are fighting heroically there. However, the situation in such conditions remains extremely challenging. The supply route for our group in the Kurakhove area is under fire and monitored by enemy drones. Naturally, conducting effective combat operations or engaging in urban warfare under such circumstances is very difficult. It is clear that a solution is needed to establish a continuous defensive line further back. This is not just my opinion but also the view of the soldiers currently fighting on the front lines. We are also observing enemy advances in certain areas between Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. The enemy is relentlessly attacking our defenses but has been unable to break through. For example, they cannot advance from Novohrodivka to Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk. But heavy fighting is going on for the village of Shevchenko.

Shevchenko village

It's near Pokrovsk, a little to the south. The situation is such that the enemy managed to enter the village. Now there are battles for the control of this settlement. The enemy is expanding the breakthrough zone. But how did they do it? They came in with absolutely no resistance. They consolidated there on our stronghold, which was dug before. And it is absolutely unoccupied by troops. What's going on there? Encounter battles. Again, the units were not notified in time. Again, there is an encounter battle. Again, we need to urgently save the situation. And suffer losses that can be avoided if there is management, organization. If you ask the higher command, "Why is this?" There is only one answer: "You know, the enemy has a great advantage there. Five to eight times." Then you look at the reports, talk to commanders on the ground, battalion and brigade commanders. They say that this advantage does not affect the entire front line at the same time. Up to fifty enemy soldiers entered Novyi Komar. They immediately started driving them out. A small group of the enemy also entered Shevchenko. Well, they don't attack by the thousands. It is impossible.

The infiltration of small groups of enemy infantry is not due to the fact that they have a large numerical advantage. They are head-on attacking populated areas. Their actions can be predicted. They do not have absolutely any know-how. There are no attacks in any direction with more than ten armored vehicles. This rarely happens anywhere. The enemy does not use armored columns for assault at all. They use them to land infantry closer to our positions, or to the point they want to capture. They deploy, withdraw. They send out these assault units, and everywhere these assault detachments are met by organized defense, where there is intelligence, they are successfully destroyed. The losses of Russian troops in this area are much higher than ours. Frontal infantry attacks are everywhere. But they regularly find such holes in our defense and advance. And here you might think, according to the reports at the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters, the High Command thinks that the enemy has amassed huge forces somewhere and has broken through. In fact, it is not. When you look at the situation where they manage to enter, they enter without resistance. 

And there are reports claiming that they entered Novyi Komar with fighting and that the enemy was met with fire. These reports are incorrect. This information is being passed to the top. Unfortunately, the enemy managed to enter the village without any resistance from our troops. It was not easy for them to be there. Not because they did not resist. The fighting had already begun in the village itself when one of our units was sent there to counterattack, and it did its best together with our drone operators and artillery. It was afterwards. The enemy was not engaged on the approach, not destroyed or halted there. They drove into the village, landed their troops, and only then began their attacks within the village.

It was the same in Shevchenko. They did not meet the enemy on the approach.

I mean, what's going on? Someone gives reports that some position is being held there. In fact, these reports do not correspond to the situation. The OTG command does not notice, they report that everything is fine, we are in control, there are people there. The OSG (Operational - Strategic Group) command reports that we are in control, there are all the points there. Then it suddenly turns out that this is false information. They don't know the situation on the ground. They give orders and demand from the battalion brigade commanders to confirm that there is someone there, but they cannot go there. Perhaps there were not enough people, not enough equipment, people did not come out for some reason. Maybe the situation is unfavorable. There is a fog of war here.

This war, what are its characteristics? Clausewitz, a military theorist in the 19th century, coined the term "fog of war". The fog of war referred to the fact that military commanders, when they make decisions, have this concept of "the fog of war." They have to act in conditions of uncertainty, in conditions of chaos. When the situation is unclear, what the enemy is doing, and in this fog of war, the commander must sometimes intuitively use his troops, his will, character, intuition must work, because he does not always have all the data. So in this war, we have all the data on the enemy. I receive a lot of reports from the frontline when they say: "We received intelligence about our situation at the front from the enemy. Not from our own commanders, not from our neighbors, but from the enemy. And our fog of war is not the enemy's situation. The fog of war is the situation among our own troops."

I was amazed when I heard that the General Staff, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had gathered journalists for an off-the-record meeting and there were plans to reform the Armed Forces off the record. And there the General Staff said, "You know, it is very expensive for us to maintain divisions. We don't need divisions. We need to manage brigades. And in order to administer brigades, we will have corps." You know, this is such a detachment from reality. I'm shocked at how far our military leadership is detached from the real situation on the front. If you ask the generals who are in charge of all this, they know all the names, the threats, where each unit is stationed. But they know this from papers, from their reports. They do not study the real situation. They do not communicate with battalion commanders.

So I had a conversation with one of the military leaders. I said to him, "You know, the brigade commanders and battalion commanders do not report the real situation to you, because they are simply afraid of you. They are afraid of you, you are constantly changing commanders, it is completely incomprehensible, and, first of all, you change those who give reliable information. Because you consider them to be alarmists, and those who are sitting there say: "Yes! Yes, sir!" and sign any order, send people, they are good. They are kept in their positions for months. And that's why you are afraid of those people who want to tell you the honest situation. And those who lie or don't even understand what's going on, you keep them in their positions. This manager told me: "You know, it can't be like this. They are so happy when I come here. They are so happy".

There are some brigades where we have had six brigade commanders replaced since the beginning of the war. We change combatants like gloves, instantly, without any sort of analysis. And then the question arises, why are they afraid of me? Yes, they are afraid, because there is no logic in personnel decisions.

Divisions are not needed. So look at the mess and chaos in military management in this area. What do you mean, no divisions are needed? Try to figure out who is where. Try to find out now, in the direction of Velyka Novosilka-Pokrovsk-Shevchenko. Who is standing where, which lines? Who lost that checkpoint at the entrance to Shevchenko? Let's sort this out for once.

It was also reported, a certain brigade commander, a certain battalion commander, a certain commander of the ATO, a certain commander of the Donetsk ATO, Lutsenko, the chief of staff of the Donetsk ATO, Ledovyi, utterly incompetent person, with no experience in managing military formations and units, who is liked by Oleksandr Syrskyi because he served with him, his man. So they keep him there, and Ledovyi completely failed in the Luhansk OTG, he was dismissed from the Luhansk OTG because there was complete disorganization there because of his decisions, and he was "terribly punished." He did not cope with his duties, and Syrskyi appointed him as the chief of staff of the Donetsk OTG. Apparently, to spread this negative experience to the Donetsk OTG as well.

The result, Oleksandr Stanislavovych, can be clearly seen. Who is suffering because of this? I want to say that Syrskyi himself is suffering because of this. Because I personally received information that one of the brigades, which is stationed near Pokrovsk in an important area, has had its combat mission changed four times in three days. Just imagine. Three consecutive days, the soldiers don’t sleep. Order is the following: "You’re moving to these positions, this is now your defensive sector." The troops prepare, move out, and arrive at the designated areas, reconnaissance begins, the battalion commander remains awake, the positions are set up. Poof! - In a few hours, you have a new defense area. You're redeploying to another area, another task. Fine, they redeploy. Everyone is swearing, shouting; no one is happy. They drive through the mud, towing vehicles, repositioning. A new area means new tasks, and more hours on the move. It’s exhausting—physically and mentally. The soldiers can’t sleep.  At night, there’s a meeting with the brigade command that oversees this battalion. By morning, another new order: "Move to a different area." This is madness! Is this the way to manage troops and people? Have you yourself ever redeployed a battalion three times in three or four days? Let General Hnatov come here and try it once. He has no such experience in his life. Colonel Lutsenko, the commander of the Donetsk OTG, Chief of Staff Ledovyi. You've never done this in your life. How can you give orders to people if you have never done it? You don't know how to do it yourself. What is the purpose of this? Who are these tasks being given to? To the newly formed units. Not to contract professionals from the 79th Brigade, which Colonel Lutsenko successfully commanded at the beginning of the war. A staff, combat, professional unit. These are ordinary people from the street who were not given time to prepare, who were not provided with a single drone by the General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, or the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. 

I'm speaking responsibly about this brigade, and I won't name it while it's deployed there: not a single drone, no electronic warfare systems, no time to even weld protective grills onto the equipment. How is this even possible? Do you have any idea what the military command is doing? First, you announce on TV and at meetings that there are no people, that people aren't joining the army, that there’s a shortage of personnel. And then, when people come—voluntarily, motivated, without fleeing to the rear, without swimming across the Tisza, without being afraid—they report to the deployment area. How can you fail to provide them with even the most basic supplies? There’s money for the Ministry of National Unity, for handing out a thousand to everyone, for maintaining the Office of the President, the government, and all state agencies and ministries. There’s money for all of that. So how can you complain about a lack of personnel and fail to do the bare minimum for those who do come? And on top of that, you assign them tasks that are completely inadequate for the situation. This is a crime! You will lose these people, allow the enemy to advance further, and then you’ll start whining again—claiming that there were 20 times more Russians and that’s why you couldn’t hold the front. But that’s a lie!

All the lies in the assessment of the situation originate with the military leadership, not the soldiers. Soldiers act in a predictable manner. We understand the situation, they understand it, battalion commanders understand it. Then it turns out that the enemy has entered Shevchenko, and some mobilized people who are not yet sufficiently coordinated have to go and oust them. And I want to tell you, these people go and oust them. And now Shevchenko is ours. And this was done not because there was planning, because someone had deployed in advance, engage them. But because there is an encounter battle again. And there are heroes there who are still fighting this battle in spite of everything.

Now we are going to buy a few drones for these fighters from the foundation as a matter of urgency. We have already bought drones for this unit, and now we will send more. After all, there is no centralized supply. Why doesn't this bother the leaders who give orders?

The situation is the same with the village of Novyi Komar - try to find out who is in charge there. One brigade, one battalion is attached to another brigade, and another brigade that was in this area was redeployed, and another brigade was deployed there. This is just absurd. Battalions, brigades, everything is mixed up, areas of responsibility. And there are people. The main question people have at the front is not that there are not enough of them. The first question is why those who are there are used so ineptly and inadequately. People do not understand this. New brigades are now deploying to the frontline. They are fresh, relatively fresh. They are replenished with people, new people. There is new equipment. But it is not provided with drones or electronic warfare systems. How can you treat lives so irresponsibly? Is it really possible to spend billions on just anything? On repairs, on construction, on new ministries, on old ministries.

The 155th Brigade named after Anna de Kyiv has now also been trained in France. It is equipped with the latest Caesar 155-millimeter howitzers and French armored vehicles. Why can't we buy at least a hundred of these Mavics for a brigade like the one about which reports are made? They didn't give anything at all. Why don't you install electronic warfare systems on Caesars? How can you not buy electronic warfare systems for this equipment with people who are transporting it to the front? It costs 100 times cheaper than the state will pay 15 million for the dead. So why do it? Why can't you concentrate money to ensure the combat capability of the troops in a comprehensive manner?

OTG "Donetsk." One by one, the positions along the line are collapsing. The enemy infiltrates and encircles. Combat-ready units are then sent into counterattacks on empty positions. They get ground down, and no one reports the true situation. Eventually, the combat-ready units are ground down, and the remaining ones, which are less capable, are unwilling to engage in encounter battles. Sergeants, company commanders, and platoon leaders are not present everywhere. Command and control are lacking in some places. Arrows are drawn on the map, but the units do not move. Or perhaps the equipment is faulty. As a result, no one occupies the position where heavy encounter battles are raging in the forest plantation nearby. And no one goes to the next position either, where the strongpoint is already dug in. Why? Because earlier, there were lies that the position was successfully held, the situation was under control, and reserve positions were not established.

It turns out that we have the same scenario: an encounter battle, the enemy is moving somewhere, it advances while a combat-ready unit is moving to the encounter battle. This unit engages in encounter battles, and the command of the OTG, OSGT, sets them unrealistic tasks to stop the enemy with encounter battles, to stabilize the defense. They stop the defense. Only as long as there are still people there. And then they exchange infantry. And then advance.

The enemy has no fewer drones, and often even more because unlike the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the enemy has a centralized supply of Mavic drones. They deliver them from the regions in large quantities. They have reserves, capabilities, aircraft, bombs, artillery, and ammunition. Naturally, they engage in encounter battles. If the battle occurs on unequipped positions, our infantry ends up being exchanged and suffers losses as well. Yes, we engage, we fight against these "mobiks" (newly mobilized soldiers - ed. note) that Russia throws into battle without proper preparation. After one or two weeks of preparation, Russian soldiers launch their attacks. The Russians demonstrate no particular skill. They are simply sent forward as cannon fodder. In one, two, three, even five locations, these groups are destroyed. But in the sixth, they break through, infiltrate our rear, and start inflicting losses on us. They establish a foothold, and dislodging them becomes extremely difficult. If the defense were organized in two echelons, such problems would not arise.

For example, we have the enemy advancing on the village of Terny near Lyman for a month and a half. It was a very difficult situation, a great advantage. Two Russian divisions were attacking the 60th Mechanized Brigade. There were constant battles, attacks, but the command of the 60th Brigade, the tactical group built a defense in two lines, quickly managed to deploy the defense, despite the fact that the enemy was also advancing. And all the attacks were repelled. After a month and a half of fighting, the village of Terny is now under our control. Yes, the enemy completely destroyed it, there are no houses there at all. They destroyed everything, but our soldiers have been holding this military line for a month and a half.

The neighboring OTG "Luhansk" was commanded by Mykhailo Drapatyi for a long time, and Colonel Ledovyi was there before him. And after arriving at the Luhansk OTG, what was the first thing Drapatyi did? He banned lies in reports, started building trust in the army, started checking reports, started doing objective reviews, and made sure that the brigade commanders saw that he was not just dismissing them, but that he demanded that the brigade commanders and the battalion commanders provide reliable information. And he has achieved this.

What is happening in the neighboring OTG "Donetsk"? Chief of Staff Ledovyi was transferred there from the Luhansk OTG. Colonel Lutsenko was in the 79th Brigade at the beginning of the war, and he was respected by the authorities. His deputy, Pavlo Fedosenko, a Hero of Ukraine, held significant authority in the 92nd Brigade at the beginning of the war. They were promoted to these positions, but I don't know why they can't perform their duties. Probably because there is a lot of chaos there, with too many troops. The General Staff and Syrskyi don't need divisions, and they are not able to establish order and organize the forces at the tactical level. They prefer to manage everything manually. But that never works in manual mode. Our brigade in Shevchenko receives orders directly from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. In other words, the control is coming from the top, bypassing the OSG and OTG leadership. What does this mean? It means there is no trust in the OTG, OSG, or their decisions. So why do we even need a command system that is not trusted? And the Commander-in-Chief is managing the brigade’s combat. What’s the point of this entire command structure? Why not just have Syrskyi in charge of everything? Why not? Let's do it in some areas, like Kursk. There simply won't be these OTGs and OSGs if they are not needed.  If you have to manage over their heads. 

This is compounded by the fact that there are some brigades with which I spoke about the problems in management, and there are 59 of them - no solutions, no changes. This needs to be sorted out, either because these commanders are being given unrealistic tasks or they cannot prepare for them. Why is it reported that someone is there, and then there is no one? What are the gaps in the battle lines? Why is this happening?

After Action Review

I see that in our system it is absolutely impossible to just dismiss someone. When we simply dismiss someone, and when the whole situation is simplified, that this one is bad and this one is good, subjectivity immediately arises, first the bad ones are dismissed, and then the adequate commanders are dismissed. And without any explanation. I believe that the only thing that will happen is if there is no After Action Review, that is, a procedure for post-operational analysis, if it is not clearly defined who reported, who ordered, who is responsible for the defense lines, why the enemy is passing in columns back and forth, entering certain positions without a fight, without resistance, despite reports that the lines have been set up there. I would like to see an analysis once. That's who lied, why. This analysis of the situation, but it should start with Syrskyi himself, with the General Staff, with the OSGT, with the OTG. And so gradually from the highest office to the company commander. And to analyze once why this happened. For example, in Shevchenko, in Novyi Komar. There are many other examples. Kurakhove, in other directions. And once we figure it out, we should order the troops to find out who and how misreported the situation, inadequately assessed the situation, did not understand the situation, lied. Not for the SBI, but in an official capacity. Just an After Action Review. An after-action analysis in accordance with NATO standards.

We're talking about NATO standards, right? Well, let's implement them—let's at least start with one standard. That would bring some logic to the process. Right now, regarding the Donetsk OTG, this seems like an obvious decision. I spoke with some people close to our decision-making center, and I said: "You have Drapatyi, who you assigned to the Luhansk direction, and he stabilized the situation there. Then you assigned him to the Kharkiv OTG, and again, he stabilized the situation. So why not put him in charge of the Donetsk OTG? It's the obvious choice.

Why not appoint Ruslan Shevchuk, the commander of the 58th Brigade, for example, to the Donetsk OTG? When Ruslan Shevchuk commanded the 58th Brigade from Velyka Novosilka to Vuhledar, his area of responsibility was 50 kilometers. And he was in charge of the attached subunits, 12 attached subunits and his battalions, 5 battalions, on the 50-kilometer front. In other words, the man has organizational skills. He did all of this with very limited forces, and he succeeded. Why not appoint people who have proven their competence?

No, they put Drapatyi in charge of some administrative matters at the Ground Forces Command. This is an honorable position, as I said on the air, but such commanders are now needed at the front. And we have people in charge at the front who, for a variety of reasons, cannot do it. This chaos is man-made, it is caused by management, not by a lack of people. And I want to say one more thing.

Is the reason for the failures really that there are more Russians?

I was very unpleasant to hear such an assessment that all the reasons are that there are more Russians. But there is no such thing at the front! Let's look at our aerial reconnaissance reports in this regard. How many Russian soldiers do they see per day? Our aerial reconnaissance men just record it. In all directions, in this Pokrovsk direction, more than 500-700 people in the entire direction. This is the maximum number of movements of enemy personnel not only to the front line, but also from the front line. Therefore, the enemy has an advantage in what? The advantage in numbers is not that they throw them into battle at the same time, break through the front. The advantage is that they regularly bring more reserves than ours there and throw them into battle under the threat of execution. This is their advantage. But we have areas where the enemy is attacking again and again, and they are being destroyed group by group methodically. And wherever the defense is built in two echelons, the right organization, reconnaissance, and radio horizons are on our side, not the enemy's. That is, the dominant hills from which it is convenient to operate different types of drones. Where there are large spaces that are clearly visible to drones. Where there is interaction between firepower and drones. Where there is adequate use of infantry, people are given rest, adequate tasks, and transportation. There, the enemy simply does not go anywhere. This is just an organizational and managerial decision. A set of managerial and organizational tasks. This is not a miracle. It's not some Napoleons holding the line, but ordinary people. And when people say that the enemy is advancing only because they outnumber us 5-8 times, it's not true. At the moment when the enemy is attacking, their forces and means are roughly comparable to ours. 

They advance on the area where they are successful, they see that the defense is weak and disorganized, and they start to bring in reserves. And at the same time, these crowds are not advancing along the entire front. Ten times as many people do not advance on our stronghold at once. There are no 40-50 people marching on our unit at once, because they will be simply destroyed. The columns enter somewhere, unload the infantry and look for holes in the defense. How does the enemy find holes in the defense? Not only because they send groups everywhere, but also because they use their intelligence to find our positions. Their drones are flying around. And where they find weaknesses in our defense, they direct their attacks there. And there they have success. And where our positions are camouflaged, where there is a fire control system, where drones work, where firepower works, the enemy arrives, thinks there is no one there, and is killed. Again and again, day after day. And this superiority in forces does not work there. They are simply grinding them down. So, unfortunately, this is the situation.

And what is happening at the Donetsk OTG, in contrast to the Luhansk oTG and other OTGs, for example, Lyman. In other words, this is an organizational and management problem. Nothing more. And the price of not solving this problem is that brigade after brigade, battalion after battalion is sent to this area, and reserves are destroyed there. Moreover, they are being sent in a hurry, without any provision of drones at all. At the end of the year, they just stopped issuing Mavics. It's just a crazy. How can this be? Elementary Mavics, the enemy outnumbers our army in terms of the number of drops. Unfortunately. And here are the results of his advance. So this is a management and organizational problem. It is a shame that it cannot be solved. It cannot be solved because there is no coherence, consistency and logic in the actions of the military leadership in the first place.

There are people in this area, there is ammunition, there is equipment. But when the soldiers, commanders, and rank-and-file officers who perform these tasks do not understand what is happening in the command and control, what is the interaction with the neighbors, what is the logic of actions. They don't understand the procedure for organizing defense. And I hear this from most commanders in this area. I don't know a single commander, company, or battalion who would adequately assess this command. I won't talk about brigade commanders. These are people of high caliber. Let them work. But I don't know a single brigade commander who positively approves of these management methods.

Answers to questions

If Drapatyi could stabilize everything, then the point is not in Syrskyi, but in the fact that it is impossible to clone Drapatyi?

Why clone him? He needs to be sent to the area where stabilization is needed. We have one area on the frontline where the enemy is moving uncontrollably. This is the "Donetsk" OTG. We need to send him there... The situation near Kupiansk is difficult, but it is not on the same scale there. The enemy is advancing, but it is not advancing at the same pace as in the Donetsk OTG.

Can this situation be changed by the new appointment of Apostol? Who is responsible for the situation?

Syrskyi, Zelenskyy, Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Who should make the decision? The commander of the 95th Brigade, Apostol, appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Combat Training. This position is not directly related to the command of the troops. It is an administrative position. It concerns the training of troops. Who is responsible for the situation? Well, of course, there is a chain of command. There is the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. This is defined by the Constitution. They are responsible for this, they report. And every night the Supreme Commander-in-Chief writes such optimistic reports that we are controlling the situation, we held a meeting on Pokrovsk, on all these areas. Meetings are held, but the result is zero, as we see in practice. There are no changes, no conclusions, nothing. Just a stream of soothing words, without drones. If, instead of his visions, Volodymyr Zelenskyy had at least sent 100 drones to the front, the effect of sending 100 drones to the Velyka Novosilka area would have been much more important for the development of events than his monthly meetings of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. That's all.

What about Kherson? They say the enemy is preparing an offensive.

The Russian command is indeed now demonstrating preparations for an offensive operation, but we do not know whether it will be implemented or not. In fact, this is the opposite of the experience of Krynky. The Russian command is in no hurry, realizing all the risks of supplying across the Dnipro River. Therefore, the enemy is preparing, but it is also preparing in other parts of the front. This is one of the possible risks, but there are many such risks in the war, and we need to take them into account and react when they become a reality. I would like to say once again that there is no fog of war, and our intelligence has all the tools it needs to monitor the enemy's movements, plans, and so on. So there will be no surprises there.

What would you say about Kherson and Zaporizhzhia?

I have already mentioned Kherson. Zaporizhzhia, yes, the enemy will certainly try after they capture Velyka Novosilka, and then they will try to advance further into the Zaporizhzhia region. And in Dnipropetrovsk as well, if they are not stopped at the border.

What is the current situation with logistics at zero line? Is it adequate?

Zero line logistics always depends on the quality of organization of a particular brigade or battalion. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about any systematic approach to this work. There is adequate logistics where there is adequate management and command, and there is inadequate logistics where this is not the case for many reasons.

Tell me, what is the probability of capture of Pokrovsk? They say we will lose coal and the economy.

The enemy is now actually encircling Pokrovsk from the south in the direction of Shevchenko village. This is obvious. If you look at the map, you'll see that the enemy is heading for Novotroitske, which means that they want to encircle Pokrovsk, and they have already reached the border, Mezheve. Mezheve is on the border, this is already the Dnipropetrovsk region, on the border with Donetsk, they are closer than from Pokrovsk, they have approached it, in the direction of Shevchenko. So, of course, the enemy is preparing the same scenario as it does when it captures other cities: envelopment maneuver of our city, intercept communications and then hit the communications first, and then capture the city, avoiding street fighting.

Last week, the Western press published two figures for the Ukrainian Armed Forces - 100,000 dead and 200,000 deserters. How close do you think these figures are to reality?

Unfortunately, our irrecoverable losses in the war, according to the data that the General Staff has submitted to the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, if we count the dead and missing together, amount to about 105 thousand servicemen. This includes more than 70 thousand people recognized as dead and 35 thousand missing. What is now known, I think, is that Western journalists have received the same information that is being heard in our offices.

Regarding the number of deserters: the concept of a deserter in our conditions is very blurred. People who have gone AWOL, people who refuse to perform tasks, people who have gone AWOL and fled, people who have gone AWOL and want to transfer, people who are in military camps. The figure is not exact, I think there are tens of thousands of people who evade or go AWOL in various ways, but to say 200 is an exaggeration.

I want to say that a significant part of these people, who are now defined as AWOL, absent without leave, these are people whose problem was not created by themselves, but created by our mobilization system. Instead of establishing clear rules and procedures to determine who should serve, in what capacity, and where, we’ve ended up with a "wild safari" on the streets. This chaotic approach involves grabbing anyone who is easier to catch to fulfill a plan. Instead of clear rules and regulations on who should serve, we have this system of wild safari in the streets, that is, instead of determining the purpose of people, who should serve, who should fight, in what positions, instead of this wild safari in the streets, they grab people to fulfill the plan, who is easier to catch. There are sick people, very seriously sick people, and they are shoved into the plan, thrown into a brigade somewhere, the TCR reports, the plan is fulfilled, then the so-called soldiers arrive at the military unit, they are told, who needs you, what are you even doing here? And they go home quietly. And some of them just get a uniform, some payment, and go home, without even reporting for duty. Why is this happening? The TCR labels these individuals as "AWOL" or "deserters".So they were not going to, well, who were you recruiting? I don't know a commander who wouldn't tell stories about how they send some sick people, completely sick, and they are simply not needed in the army, they don't know how to get rid of them. Or, to fulfill the plan, they put on a military uniform, and the person immediately turns around and goes home, and that's it. And does not serve at all.  As a result, these figures of alleged deserters are highly unreliable, because our current mobilization and personnel management system is disorganized and ineffective, making it impossible to accurately determine the number of true evaders. Moreover, some soldiers go AWOL because of the system's failures—they can’t transfer, can’t get rest, and are pushed to their limits.I know of numerous cases where soldiers went AWOL, took a few months to recover from immense pressure, and then returned to their units to fight heroically. This chaotic system doesn’t just fail to address these issues—it perpetuates them.

How do you feel about possible negotiations with the enemy? What, in your opinion, are the possible adequate options for a truce?

Negotiations with the enemy are possible, but these negotiations should be based on conditions that are favorable for Ukraine. If we have this kind of management at the front, this kind of disorder and chaos, it will mean only one thing: Ukraine is unable to hold the front, unable to stop Russian aggression, and therefore it is negotiating from a position of weakness. We have no people, we can't hold it, so let's just put up with it as it is. This is what it's all about. People are being lost because there is no time for drones, for electronic warfare, for management, no money for all this. Look for volunteers to do it all. For the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, this is not a priority for providing troops.

Look at the brigades in the Pokrovsk direction. Look at the 155th, the 157th, the 32nd. Look at any of them. And how many Mavics and Autels have been received from the state in a month? How many fpv drones have they received? EWs? Cables? Pickup trucks? ATVs? Thermal imaging raincoats with Kevlar to protect against drops from drones? Ask and you will understand everything at once. The cost of this compared to the cost of the dead, compared to the cost of maintaining this state apparatus, is simply incommensurable. This is not much money that the state has.

Organizational and management decisions. And you don't need money for that at all. It's just basic logic. Build a line. All soldiers talk about this. Why can't we just stand on a line? Where there are convenient radio horizons for our troops, for drones. Cut down and clear the forest plantations in front of us. Dig in, create concealed positions. Set up two echelons so the troops can support each other and not be stretched into a thin line. And stop the enemy. Why can this be done in Terny but not here? Are there more troops there? No. There are more troops here in the Donetsk OTG.

There are a lot of enemy troops. There are so many that we don't have time to shoot them. And this is a lie. We don't have time to destroy them because the defense line is not organized. And the troops are constantly being ground down in encounter battles for forest plantations. And then there are not enough people to hold real advantageous positions and strongholds. That's why there are 150 divisions, 150 brigades, 140 brigades in the Pokrovsk direction. All the reserves are sent there and there is no result. But the General Staff does not need divisions. The General Staff is obviously satisfied with this mess and disorder. Not once, after any failure at the front, has there been an analysis—an honest analysis to investigate the actions of company, battalion, and brigade commanders, or the reasons behind orders and erroneous decisions made by OTG, OSGT, and even the Commander-in-Chief. And if just once a study were conducted on the villages of Shevchenko and Novyi Komar, everything would become clear. It would immediately reveal who lied, who gave inadequate orders, and who is planning these encounter battles.

I hope that perhaps public pressure and the enemy's advance toward central Ukraine will finally force the Commander of the Joint Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelensky to take a serious look at NATO, which they love to criticize so much, saying that something isn’t working in Ukraine—these NATO standards. Just look at how it works, just once. Implement one standard, let it work for you, even just once. TC-2520, the United States Army's regulation. "You take HIMARS from the Americans, you take bombs and missiles from the Americans, so why not take one military standard from America and implement it?" The impact of the TC-2520 After Action Review would be greater than a hundred HIMARS. We need to encourage people to perform their duties properly. And they play stupid, saying they don't understand what it is. They hide their simple indifference and unwillingness to work for the result. 

We will continue to report on the situation in this area. The enemy is already very close to the Dnipropetrovsk region. And it is not yet clear how its leadership is going to stop it for the moment. Therefore, I hope that our society will force the authorities, the military and political leadership, to make the elementary, obvious management decisions that the frontline demands, that soldiers and officers demand. Friends, thank you for the broadcast and glory to Ukraine!