Lack of fighters: Ukrainian officer reports on how they are dealing with personnel shortage on the front lines

The grouping of Russians in the Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk regions is 7-10 times more powerful than the “Khortytsia” group, which holds the frontline in these areas.

This was reported in the Verkhovna Rada by the Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuriy Sodol.

“A mechanized, infantry, motorized infantry, rifle platoon – typically consists of eight to ten people plus a combat vehicle. Using a combat vehicle in defense is very difficult now because a new type of weapon has emerged, such as kamikaze drones or FPV drones. And this machine, it lives for a maximum of half an hour. Therefore, the main burden falls on the personnel of, let’s say, mechanized or infantry units. So now we have two personnel left in the units, some units have three to four people,” Sodol said.

He added that “according to tactical norms, this platoon is given to defend a guaranteed 100 meters of the front line.”

“If there are two people, they can defend 20 meters of the front. The question immediately arises, who will defend the remaining 80? And if we go further, then a platoon defends a section of 400 meters by 300 meters in depth, and with the staffing we have, there is no one to defend from 240 to 320 meters,” the commander said.

According to him, a similar situation exists at the brigade level.

“According to regulations, a brigade is endowed with up to 15 kilometers of the front. With this staffing, the brigade can hold a maximum of five, and sometimes even fewer. Therefore, instead of one brigade, we are forced to deploy three brigades. And these two brigades could have been in the rear, in the middle of the country, where the personnel could rest, be supplemented, receive weapons, undergo proper training, to then create or replace the brigade that is defending,” Sodol explained.

It’s worth reminding that today, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the second reading a bill on tightening mobilization. 283 MPs voted for it.

At the same time, The New York Times stated that additional mobilization threatens to “wipe out a whole generation” of men in Ukraine. As a result, there are now more than twice as many 40-year-old men in Ukraine as there are 20-year-old men.

Earlier it was reported that as few children as there are now have not been born in Ukraine for at least the last three centuries.