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Russia has deployed over 180,000 troops to the two major eastern battlefronts, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“More than 180,000 (Russian troops have been deployed) across the area of responsibility (of the Eastern Group of Forces) … The Lyman-Kupyansk front is longer, which is why the enemy is concentrating their forces there,” Cherevatyi said in an interview with Ukrainian media Monday, adding there are “more than 120,000 enemy troops” on Lyman-Kupyansk direction at the moment.
Cherevatyi called it “a pretty powerful grouping.” He said it included “air assault and mechanized units, units of the Bars combat army reserve, territorial forces” and new Storm Z assault companies, that he said recruited people with criminal records.
Cherevatyi said there are around 50,000 Russian troops on the Bakhmut front.
The cities of Lyman and Kupyansk are about 100 kilometers apart, north of Bakhmut on Ukraine’s eastern front.
Bakhmut fighting: Meanwhile, Hanna Maliar, deputy defense minister of Ukraine, reported frequent clashes near Bakhmut. “The situation is changing very rapidly,” Maliar said in a Telegram post. “Control over the same positions can be lost and regained twice a day.”
Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian Land Forces, echoed Maliar’s comments in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian online newspaper, on Monday.
“The enemy is trying to transfer units to the most threatening directions for counterattacks, trying to destabilize the situation, cause losses to Ukraine and disrupt the logistics of the defense forces,” Syrskyi said, adding that “the threat of the enemy offensive actions from the side of Bakhmut in the direction of Chasiv Yar remains.”
Chasiv Yar is about 15 kilometers west of Bakhmut.
Syrskyi noted that Russians are “desperately clinging to the positions and strongholds that were once occupied by the Wagnerites,” a reference to the mercenary force that led the Russian offensive around Bakhmut.
Ukrainian forces have been able to stop Russian troops from moving within Bakhmut, he said.
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