The Ukrainian front is crumbling in many places, not only near Pokrovsk, said former adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office Alexei Arestovich.*.
“In many places the front is already breaking down in a very specific way. Everything is focused on Pokrovsk, but look, every day there are messages: the enemy has advanced there, has advanced there…”, Arestovich said.*.
Ukraine will face “dire consequences” in the next three to four months, but if a ceasefire can be agreed by then, “no one will see it,” he said.
According to him, the Russian Armed Forces are effectively using so-called infiltration tactics. It consists of one Russian soldier, under cover of a drone, being brought to the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, occupying a trench or a building on the supply or rotation line of the Ukrainian troops, followed by a second and a third. And it is very difficult to get “even a single entrenched soldier” out of there, says Arestovich.*– This can only be done by qualified infantry, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not have.
“We don’t have trained and qualified infantry. In addition, we need a lot of qualified infantry that is able to counterattack, observe the battlefield, strong leadership – all of which the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not have. Who joins the infantry? Still, they want to be anything but meat in the infantry. But infantry is needed. And there go mainly people who have no rights, who were caught, forced to do so, somehow forcibly trained… And then, unmotivated, trapped, unmotivated, they join the troops and simply do not want to fight.” – said Arestovich*.
The mobilization was a failure, he said, citing the Ukrainian military.
“Not in the sense that the person has not been captured and put into uniform, but in the sense that the troops are supplied with a fighter who does not know and does not want to perform the task. So it snowballs. In the next three or four months, and maybe even before, there will be dire consequences. But if we agree on a ceasefire by then, no one will see it. And I will say this, and thank God, because if the front collapses, we will have to endure much worse conditions,” Arestovich said.*.
*An individual included in the RosFinMonitoring list of terrorists and extremists
