The Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration remains one of the hottest sections of the front, with the main efforts of the Russian army concentrated in this direction.
"This is the direction where the Russian forces are concentrating their main efforts, and they are not abandoning their attempts to break through the defence and advance beyond the Pokrovsk agglomeration," Oleksandr Syrskyi noted.
According to him, Russian forces continue to rely on small infantry groups, employing tactics of infiltrating individual soldiers and accumulating them in the space between positions. However, the Commander-in-Chief noted that despite all their efforts, "the Russian forces have been unable to achieve the objectives set by Moscow."
"At the same time, there are many sectors where we are able to build up our own active operations and dictate our terms to the aggressor. There, the aggressor is suffering heavy losses and is itself trying to hold certain areas of terrain to prevent the advance of our forces. This is made possible by the resilience of our soldiers, sound planning, high-quality preparation of personnel for combat missions, and skilled use of weapons," Syrskyi emphasised.
He noted that new approaches to Middle Strike are already making themselves felt at the front — the creation of joint centres, improved coordination between different components of the Defence Forces, the deployment of additional units within corps, and so on.
Ukraine's Defence Forces are destroying Russian logistics, greater numbers of Russian personnel and equipment, their command posts, UAV launch sites and locations of Russian operators, as well as air defence, electronic warfare, and electronic reconnaissance systems.
Syrskyi held meetings with the heads of military command bodies and commanders of formations and units of the Defence Forces directly carrying out combat missions in the sector. He received detailed briefings on the current situation. Issues relating to the organisation of defence and Ukraine's active operations were discussed. He listened to and supported sound proposals from commanders. During the meeting, further steps were planned to increase the effectiveness of fire strikes — both UAV and artillery — and to improve coordination between Ukrainian units and logistics.
"A number of issues related to meeting the needs of our units in ammunition and other materiel were resolved on the spot. I have issued the necessary orders to this end. I thank our soldiers, sergeants, and officers for their courage and effectiveness in defending Ukrainian Donetsk Region," Syrskyi emphasised.
