A Ukrainian official confirmed to the newspaper Financial Times on December 13 that Mr. Oleksandr Lutsenko was dismissed as commander of the Donetsk tactical and operational group, in eastern Ukraine.
The official, who did not reveal his identity, added that Mr. Lutsenko would be given another position in the army’s ground forces. The above position was given to Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi.
How does the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine comment on the situation in Pokrovsk?
Ukrainian forces, under the command of Mr. Lutsenko, have been unable to stop the full-scale offensive by Russian forces that has given them control of a large area just over the past month.
Previously on December 13, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army Oleksandr Syrsky gave a speech from a command center near the city of Pokrovsk, the center of the Donetsk campaign and an important logistics center for the Ukrainian army. Mr. Syrsky said that battles against a Russian army “superior . . . mainly in terms of manpower” were raging.
Ukrainian soldiers load ammunition into 2S5 “Hyacinth-s” self-propelled guns as they fire at Russian soldiers on the front line, near the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk province on November 18.
“The battles are extremely fierce. The Russian side is deploying all available forces and trying to break our army’s defenses,” Mr. Syrsky said.
Deep State, a group monitoring the Russia-Ukraine conflict, assesses that Ukrainians defending four villages south of Pokrovsk are at risk of being surrounded, as Russian forces attack “from all sides”.
Russian forces have recently advanced at their fastest pace since 2022 and their current focus is on Pokrovsk, as well as the key towns of Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka to the south. This area is located near three main highways running to Dnipropetrovsk province and the city of Dnipro, which plays an important role in Ukrainian military operations on most of the 1,000 km long front line.
Underlining the difficult situation facing Ukrainian soldiers on the eastern front, Mr Syrsky warned that he would soon have to make “unconventional decisions to strengthen the stability of the defense and destroy the enemy”. destroy enemy forces more effectively.”
Mr Syrsky, who engineered Kyiv’s controversial offensive on Russia’s Kursk province in August and its successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv province in 2022, is said to be willing to take risks to try to disrupt enemy’s plans and change the situation on the battlefield.
Financial Times Quoting analysts, Ukraine’s biggest challenge is human resources. Experienced Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, while efforts to mobilize manpower have largely stalled.
There is currently no information on the reaction of Ukraine and Russia to new information from Financial Times.
