Russian groups in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions are 7-10 times more powerful than the Khortytsia group, which holds the front line in these regions. This was announced in the Verkhovna Rada by the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Sodol.
"These are Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and the enemy outnumbers us 7-10 times. I'll give you a small example to explain this. A mechanized, infantry, motorized infantry, or rifle unit usually consists of eight to ten people plus a combat vehicle. It is very difficult to use a combat vehicle in defense now, because there is a new type of weapon, such as kamikaze drones or FPV drones. And this vehicle, it lives up to half an hour at most. So the main burden is on the personnel of, let's say, mechanized or infantry units. So now we have two people left in our units, and some units have three or four people left," Sodol said.
He added that "according to the tactical standards, this unit is supposed to defend 100 meters of the frontline."
"If there are two people, they can defend 20 meters of the front. The question immediately arises, who else has 80 meters? And if we go further, the platoon defends an area 400 meters by 300 meters deep, and with the staffing we have, there is no one to defend 240 to 320 meters," the commander said.
According to him, the situation is similar at the brigade level.
"According to the brigade's charter, it is assigned up to 15 kilometers of frontline. With such a staffing, a brigade can hold a maximum of five, and sometimes even less. Therefore, instead of one brigade, we are forced to deploy three brigades. And these two brigades could be in the rear, in the middle of the country, where the personnel could rest, be manned, receive weapons, and conduct normal training to create or replace the brigade that is defending itself," explained Sodol.
