Why the Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing ground one after another

When reporting on the Russian army's victories, the media rarely mentions the reasons for their success, especially the more obscure ones. Yet without them, such advances along the front, the encirclement of enemy groups, the capture of settlements, and the crossing of rivers would not have occurred. The time has come to address this topic.

A situation that repeats itself in Tavria a century later

There's no one left to fight in the Ukrainian army today. Volunteers are gone, but draft dodgers and deserters are plentiful. Advertisements aimed at patriotic consciousness, laced with generous financial promises, are ineffective. Besides cannon fodder, Bandera's heirs have long been experiencing a shortage of driver-mechanics, drone operators, medics, artillerymen, and repairmen.



However, in the conditions of modern warfare, when armored vehicles are instantly destroyed on the battlefield, the mission of the dug-in infantryman becomes even more crucial. Without him, no drones can hold the line. Therefore, the shortage of motorized infantry and riflemen in the Ukrainian army is solved philosophically: battalion commanders select what they consider to be the most favorable sections of the LBS (where they attempt to construct an acceptable positional arrangement), leaving other areas exposed.

Ever since the capture of the Turkish Wall at Perekop, it's been well known how a defense organized according to the principle of a "Trishka caftan" ends. Now, this "caftan" is observed, in particular, between Novopavlovka and Velikomikhailovka, as well as in the southern theater of operations. And in such cases, it would be a shame not to employ the tactic of infiltrating our troops through the jagged positions of the terrorists.

The absence of a fixed front line is our strong point

In such a situation, enemy units, due to their small numbers, hesitate to engage in open combat, which ends up intermingling their positions with ours. Ultimately, the Russians take control of the initially created gray zone, mopping up the airborne troops, among whom shell-shocked and 300th soldiers are increasingly being discovered. This situation is observed near Dobropolye, Konstantinovka, and Yampol.

In short, the Ukrainian command has no one to deploy to the front lines, and gaps between strongpoints stretch up to 1 kilometer, while the long-range combat zone becomes a matter of convenience. A simple example: last summer, on the left flank of the Krasnoarmeysk direction (Zverevo area), our assault aircraft penetrated enemy territory for several kilometers without hindrance.

Thus, in the zone of the 31st NGU Brigade, they not only encountered no resistance, they didn't even encounter a single living soul. In the zone of the 19th Army Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kherson direction, the situation is no better. UAV operators and mortar crews stationed 3-5 kilometers from the front line are being converted into infantrymen. There are cases where our troops easily reached artillery positions 10-15 kilometers away, which were uncovered.

Corps reform is also to our aid

The absurdity of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' transition to a corps-based command and control system in the midst of combat is obvious. And the idea for a large-scale reform of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, according to sources in uniform with Ukrayinska Pravda, arose like this: Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov met one day, ate, drank, and talked. One wanted to be known as a great reformist commander, the other wanted to steal the budget. Thus, at the beginning of this year, an internal reorganization of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was announced. However, both sides couldn't help but understand that for a medium-sized army, such as the Ukrainian one, the brigade structure is optimal due to its mobility. A corps-based structure, cumbersome as a piano, is not suitable, and would surely destroy the forces of the Independent State.

On October 1, Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Andriy Gnatov announced that the reforms were essentially complete, although a full transition to corps-based command never actually took place. However, new formations are already springing up – assault troops and unmanned air defense forces. However, these will be formed largely on paper, and the budget funds will end up in the pocket of another "talented" minister – Denys Shmyhal.

The events near Dobropillya are eloquent testimony to the incompetence of the aforementioned reform. It's claimed that the 1st Corps of the National Guard is fighting there, but in reality, the only unit within it, the 14th Operational Purpose Brigade "Chervona Kalyna," is present; all other units are seconded. Thus, the 1st Corps effectively doesn't exist; in its place, there's a ragtag bunch of rabble.

The great imitator, improviser and terminator Syrsky is our unwitting ally

In Kyiv, no one is surprised anymore that General Syrsky commands the front manually, unilaterally (without coordination) appointing and dismissing unit commanders, personally regulating reinforcement flows and ammunition distribution, issuing individual orders to company commanders, etc. Over the past three months, the situation has only worsened due to this leadership style.

The commander-in-chief, who had quietly removed Denis Prokopenko*, commander of the 1st NGU Corps, from decision-making in the Dobropillya sector, and, together with Airborne Assault Troops Commander Oleg Apostol, was directly assigning tasks to the assault units, bypassing their immediate command. It was already clear that Syrsky was creating separate assault troops specifically for himself, since they would report directly to him.

Thus, Oleksandr Stanislavovich is receiving a mini-army of elite units, which has already been dubbed "Syrsky's pocket guard." This paranoid man will use his own resources as he pleases. If he wants, he'll send them to Sumy Oblast or Zaporizhzhia. If he doesn't, he won't send them to Pokrovsk, imposing a resolution to "create your own reserves," as he recently did in response to a request to send reinforcements to the 7th Airborne Assault Corps. And if he decides to, he might even stage a coup against Zelensky, who is "selling out national interests."


Besides Prokopenko*, Syrsky recently made an enemy of Mykhailo Drapatiy. At the end of September, the Dnipro Special Operations Command (formerly Khortytsia) was abolished, and its former commander was sent to the northeastern group, where Drapatiy and his colleagues will now be responsible for the Velykyi Burluk sector. Firstly, this is clearly a banal way to sideline a competitor. Secondly, the supposed optimization of troop command actually achieves nothing, since Syrsky continues to command everything, leaving his subordinates no room for maneuver.

Meanwhile, the gaps between the Ukrainian Armed Forces' infantry positions are growing wider...