October 9, 2025
The Ukrainian news-outlet Ukrainska Pravda has a new report about the state of the Ukrainian forces at the frontline. The Russian forces are winning the war bit by bit while the Ukrainian army is in constant retreat. The report is discussing several issues which prevent the Ukrainians from holding the line.
While most of UP's pieces are published in Russian/Ukrainian and English this one has yet to receive a translation. Below summaries and excerpts of it (edited machine translation):
The holes between the infantry positions are getting bigger and bigger. What prevents the Ukrainian army from deterring the Russians - Ukrainska Pravda, Oct 6 2025
The most urgent need directly on the front line remains infantry. At the current stage of the war, when the work of heavy equipment is maximally complicated, the role of soldiers in the trenches increases significantly. When they are not enough, it is not easy to organize a defense.
Due to the lack of people, many units cannot hold their positions, fully repel Russian attacks, adequately rest and conduct the necessary rotation. As a result, field commanders are forced to choose priority areas, leaving other sectors less protected.
In consequence there is no longer a real frontline. The lack of infantry leads to gaps through which Russian forces can slip into the rear of the Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian mortar troops and drone pilots who are nominally stationed five kilometer behind the frontline suddenly find themselves in direct contact with enemy troops:
A consequence of the problem described above is that infantry positions are increasingly literally deserted. Therefore, the distance between neighboring positions can be 200-300 -, 500-700 -meters, and sometimes even a kilometer.
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The formation of a huge number of holes between Ukrainian infantry positions and the penetration of these holes by the Russians deep into our defenses has formed another trend of the current stage of the war - the lack of a stable line of engagement.
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Due to the lack of fighters on the first line, drone and mortar operators, who stand 3-5 kilometers from the front edge, are forced to become infantry.
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In the worst cases, which UP is also aware of, the Russians even reach artillery positions. These are 10-15 kilometers from the contact line.
Over the last six month the Ukrainian army has changed its structure. Previously various brigades were attached to temporary operational commands (TUS,Tgrs) with each responsible for large parts of the frontline. The new model is based on a corp structure with several brigades assigned to a corp to serve under one permanent command. While the restructuring is officially finished most troops have yet to find their new home:
The key advantage of the transition of the Defense Forces to the corps system was called by supporters of the reform the emergence of stable management bodies. But this is exactly what has not happened so far, because there are still temporary TUS, Tgrs, etc. on the ground in one form or another.
Moreover, there are also questions about the transition to the implementation of tasks by corps exclusively in the designated areas of responsibility. In many sectors of the front, a full-fledged transition did not take place, while the General Staff already has plans to create even new structures, such as assault troops and troops of unmanned air defense systems as part of the air force.
In the context of a general shortage of personnel with the incomplete transition to the corps system, finding resources for new military formations will be quite problematic.
Despite having the just introduced a corp structure the newly created assault battalions were put under direct command of the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, General Syrski. Events in Ukraine recently took a look at those:
Undeterred by the total collapse of the Kursk operation in the spring of 2025, Syrsky remains fixated on the need for new offensives.
Now, the head of the army has created his own personal guard, totally willing to implement all his orders - the assault forces. The western-funded nationalist press has attacked Syrsky's new project as 'catastrophic', claiming that the units involved have taken massive losses in the urge to demonstrate their loyalty to the commander-in-chief.
For whatever reason, these highly critical articles on the assault forces from the likes of BBC Ukraine and texty.org haven't been translated to English.
Today we'll take a look at what exactly these new assault forces are. It turns out that they are largely composed of units commanded by the fascist 'Right Sector'. Syrsky chose these units because they unflinchingly took part in his Kursk adventure - in contrast to other commanders, who criticized Syrsky's folly and were sacked as a result....
The best general the Russians have, as Syrski is called by his critics, is also accused of micromanaging the fight at the frontline (edited machine translation):
In June 2025, Ukrayinska Pravda was the first to write about how Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky resorted to manual control of the front. Independently selects, and already removes, the corps commanders, decides which brigade and how much replenishment is being made, sets tasks for battalions, when they should be assigned by the brigade commander, and so on.
During these three months, the situation with the dependence of the front on the instructions of one person, according to the observations of Ukrayinska Pravda and the UP's interlocutors in the Defense Forces, has only become more complicated.
At first, Syrsky began to regularly visit and "taxi" the actions of units on the Dobropolsky ledge, which is now being "cut off" by the defense forces. According to public references of the commander-in-chief himself, over the past 3.5 months, he went to meetings and meetings with local commanders as many as eight times.
The introduction of long range First-Person-View drones by Russia has cleared the typical rear of the frontline. Command and logistics had to move back further which makes their work more costly and ineffective:
Due to the activity of Russian aircraft and drones from about the end of spring - and early summer of this year, the support units of the Ukrainian army began to move away from the line-of-contact.
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According to the decision of the Supreme Chief, all support units had to move 40-50 kilometers away from the contact line.
For logistics commanders, this decision means that with already limited resources - especially fuel-the logistics arm becomes longer and more complex.
"I used to spend 40 liters and a couple of hours to get a few tons of fuel. Now - 300 liters and almost a day," - shares with UP one of the commanders of support.
The UP authors are pessimistic about possible changes:
[T]he military command at various levels turns a blind eye to fairly obvious problems within the Ukrainian army, and the presidential office, without which no solution in this country is complete, does not risk its ratings [..]
Meanwhile, the gaps between the infantry positions are getting bigger.
This article was originally published on Moon of Alabama.