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ukrainian troops in donbas risk being encircled. kremlin chief vladimir putin boasts of a record-breaking advance for his troops on the donetsk front, and western military observers suggest that pokrovsk could fall in september. my name is ivlasta lazur. this is svoboda live. pokrovsk is not just one of the largest cities in donbas, which remains under the control of ukraine. it is

a strategic connecting logistic node roads and railways used to transport supplies for the ukrainian forces throughout donbas. if pokrovsk falls, it will seriously complicate the supply of the armed forces around toretsk, chasovoy yar, sloviansk, kramatorsk and kostiantynivka, writes the british publication ze telegram. the threat of the fall of pokrovsk is a direct result of the kursk operation, the publication states. this operation was planned by general oleksandr syrsky and approved by the president. of ukraine by volodymyr zelenskyi was intended to drive the russian troops away from this part of the front, but it did not happened this week, general syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of ukraine's armed forces, admitted that the russians had not taken the bait, although they had moved thousands of troops from other areas of the front line to kursk, and on the pokrovsky front they had doubled their forces. this week, mr. zelensky vehemently defended the decision, claiming at a press conference that the russians advanced on pokrovsk sooner than the start of the kurdish operation. this is difficult to reconcile

with the accounts of officers and soldiers on the ground. the center for defense strategies warned that on in the pokrovsk direction, russia has a four-to-one advantage in forces, resources, drones and artillery, and it is safe to assume that the russians will reach pokrovsk by mid- september. so, as the telegraph writes: russia can seize pokrovsk already this month. quite quickly, russian troops captured a number of other settlements on the way to pokrovsk. for example, they started appearing about a week ago. isolated reports from osin and analysts that russian troops were approaching novogrodivka. 5 days ago, deputy of the defense committee parliament maryana bezugla stated that the russian troops captured the city in a few days, according to her, there was practically no ukrainian army there. the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine did not officially announce the loss of novogorodivka, but judging by the deep state map, after the loss of novogorodivka, ukrainian troops were unable to stop the advance of the russian army east of the city. as a result, russian

troops wedged themselves into the defense of the armed forces of the selidove and ukrainian cities, cutting off the supply routes of the entire ukrainian group east of this area. and again, judging by this map, the village of karlivka and all territories on the banks of the karliv reservoir were also abandoned. as a result, the front is about to approach the area of ​​ukrainian and selidove cities, not only from the north, but also from the east. well, i mentioned mp maryana bezugla, who criticizes. the military command in donbass declares that the capture of karlivka enables the russian troops to take the troops of the armed forces of ukraine into an operational encirclement. at the same time , russian troops began to advance from the cities of maryinka and krasnohorivka, which they captured in the direction of kurakhovo. kurakhovo, like pokrovsk, is considered an important logistics center of the armed forces of ukraine in donbas. and here is the question: will the russian army be able to launch an offensive on pokrovsk and kurakhov at the same time, which was the reason for such a rapid advance.

russia in the donbass, the kursk operation, which involved the most combat-ready units, the lack of high-quality fortifications, which, by the way, mp maryana bezugla also often talks about, or, for example, the mistakes of the military command. and the lack of coordination between them, which is also often the case even the servicemen themselves complain, we will talk about all this in just a few minutes, but now we will understand in detail the situation in the pokrovsky direction, and serhii tsehotskyi, an officer of the 59th separate motorized infantry brigade named after yakov handziuk, is already joining our broadcast, my greetings to you, good evening, congratulations, please tell me how you yourself assess the speed of the advance of the russian army in donbas and the capture of non... populated areas in the pokrovsky direction. i would, to what i, say, would like to return more attention, well, the intensity of the enemy, yes, i confirm, yes, there are a lot of them, and they

really threw every reserve in this region that they have here, and they pulled up and are still pulling up everything that they can pull up, but... you at the beginning of your conversation, they said that there really is such an option that the enemy may be in for a surprise here, and i didn't talk about a surprise, i didn't talk about it, i mean that the enemy can get into, let's say , not very good for him a pleasant situation, extending your front in the direction of pokrovsk, you understand yes no they didn't talk, no, i don't understand, i was talking about the fact that, on the contrary , the situation is now developing, that the ukrainian troops may be encircled, we will get there now, but i asked you how you assess the speed of the advance of the russian troops on the pokrovsky direction, well, here there

are definitely many components from this offensive, you know, first of all, the first thing is that putin, by his character, has the character to... spit on his citizens, why did this, say, our successes in the kursk region not work, from he has already proven it many times, here it is already clear, here he proved it once again, secondly, without sparing his personnel, the most important thing about them is that they have an advantage over us, the fact that they lie all the time , i take their leadership, their command, they lie all the time, to their troops, to their people, really looking them straight in the eyes, they deceive and tell lies, and this is exactly what they use, and when it works, and unfortunately it works for them , but on this, on this

rush, they go to such massive assaults, i will say, again, not regretting personnel, very active, you understand, if i understood you correctly, you believe that... the speed of providing the russian troops in the pokrov direction was ensured by their great advantage and meat assaults, if i understood you correctly, yes, because the equipment they they practically did not use it, they had attempts, attempts in several places, including last saturday they stormed bmp-2 tanks in three columns of armored vehicles in the direction of our positions of the brigade. were very quickly destroyed, damaged, and who who managed to escape from the battlefield, it is mainly infantry assaults, i have a clarifying question, i have, i understood, we, we spoke today with the military who are in the pokrov direction, they say that the situation has been difficult for a year therefore, and now it is

simply catastrophic, these are the military who, who do not want to speak publicly, they are afraid to voice something in general, in particular, because they believe that they will be punished by the command for this, but... they say that the situation is catastrophic, one whether with irony, or jokingly, or not so jokingly, he even said, is it possible that the russian troops can reach the dnipro at such a pace? how do you personally assess the threat of losing the city of pokrovsk, is it realistic? er, it is impossible to predict everything about war, no one, even i think, the most conscious person could say unequivocally that it is right or wrong, that it will be so or. it will be so, but i will say that pokrovska is not in the plans of the task at all, and i will say more that the task is not to let them in, let’s say so that they can calmly shell the city from the same artillery, i have no doubts, serhiy, in i'm not there

i doubt that you and your comrades have plans to hold the city, but there is also the question of the capabilities of the ukrainian troops, for example, the western press writes that the loss of the city can happen as early as september, is that correct? it is plausible for you in view of the possibilities, you understand what the issue is, that russia has not yet captured this or that town, city, village, and already all the public are shouting that they are already there, and this has a very negative effect on the mood in our ranks and a very positive effect on them, i will just give today's example as an example day, but only by the forces of the units and the units attached to them, 158 occupiers were liquidated, 99 of them irreversible, this is only for today, let's think about it one and a half companies, one and a half storming. companies and a half companies of stormtroopers, one and a half hundred, yes, who

left power in just one day, and the day is not over yet, well, no matter how big they are there, i mean by size, by number, but they end anyway, and they also get exhausted, just like us, only we are motivated, that we stand and we protect our land, our homes, our relatives, and they... and they know this very well, somewhere, somewhere your video disappeared, they have already appeared, so i understood your situation, you, you say what are the plans the armed forces of ukraine should not surrender the city, given this answer, i understand that there are still battles ahead for the city, i understood you correctly, for now we will hold that line of defense to prevent them from getting closer to the city, for now, but i will say , we have already said and i will say it again that we have very... experienced generals and senior officers in senior staffs, i primarily have

the general staff, who are also not also, but who exactly plan these operations, look at this situation, have all the information about the enemy's forces, about our capabilities, and therefore it is purely my personal opinion, which as they say in this direction, in that pokrovsk, the enemy may be waiting very very... unexpected surprise is not very good for them, please tell me , i will still return to the speed of capturing populated areas, about a week ago ukraine lost novohorodivka, it is very close to pokrovsk , 8-10 km, and interestingly, there were practically no battles for the city, well at least we don't see any signs, because there are photos and we see that novogorodivka does not look like a city where very heavy battles took place there, such as bakhmut or... experts said that the city could hold its defense for a very long time, but it did not hold,

and what, what happened, why was the capture of the city so quick, literally in a few days, this is a very large city, it is 11-14 thousand inhabitants of the city, well, yes , we were there for almost two years in this place, drove, everything worked, the children were walking and so on, so it is not possible to say anything here clearly that they gave up, left and so on, so... such a decision was made to withdraw the troops, the decision was made, for what? well, the general staff must answer to that, save lives, well, we would delay, for example, there for two or three days, we would delay this offensive and we would bury, god forbid, a certain number of our brothers there, but i say, none a building and no piece of land, well, they are all expensive for us, but temporarily it is better to leave. to save personnel, you see, not here it is possible to categorically give some kind of expert

assessment, how better and so on, my opinion is that novogorodivka was in a geographically not very favorable position, but as a fortress, it is not quite, it was set for this moment, i do not take there a political component about these , trenches that had to be built. and why is this a political component, the trenches are not a political component, they were not there, you mean, give, i’m just saying that it was profitable to withdraw the personnel, it was better to make such a decision, alas, that we are leaving, yes we left, but i say this is not the last point in this battle, all of us directly, we are not here, we are not here with you in any case, we are not looking for the culprits, but we are just trying to figure things out. in a situation where we are really observing a very fast pace, when russian troops capture ukrainian troops somehow very

quickly in a few days, which was rarely observed before. we also know that ukrainian troops captured karlivka and the bank of the karliv reservoir, this is also the pokrovsky area, and military observers they say that there is a threat of the environment, look now at this map that we are showing you, do you see a threat of the environment there? well, for now, what i... know, let's say, there is no threat of the environment so far, thank god, but looking at this, on this map, you don't see a threat of the environment, right? i, i understand what you are talking about, but i will say, i brought you a tsif. liquidated occupiers, including on this section of the front, directly here and there, there are no more of them, and in terms of the fact that they are born soldiers right away yes, they are all the same, i am asking about this because , for example, deputy maryana bezugla, she strongly criticizes the command for the situation

in donbas, the generals, in particular, and she says that this is a threat from the entourage, i want to ask you as a professional military service do you see a threat to the environment here? i know that there is no encirclement threat yet, the situation is difficult, extremely difficult, and there is no encirclement threat . direction in general, they are qualitative with your point of view? er, i will say that we have all been practically engaged in the almost two years that we have been here. by the fact that we ourselves, including ourselves, first of all, our engineers, built the second and third lines of defense all the time, this work is constantly being carried out, so to speak, to evaluate the actions there, well, as an official, i i can't now, i'm acting there, i'm acting somewhere, i'm acting from the very top in the country, there's what we

hear, sometimes there, from people who serve the people today, so to speak. ukrainian, and i did not understand, you can explain what they say there, it doesn’t match what you have, or how you understand it, look, we have it, no, no, at our level, we are constantly working on what we are building, fortifying ourselves, barricading ourselves from the enemy, there , where it is necessary, when it is necessary, on the contrary, we clear mines when we carry out storm operations there, this is also carried out, and this work is carried out, since we are in donbas, and we have been since... november 22nd, so we constantly have this work is conducted, constantly, therefore, i want to quote you, criticize or not criticize, i do not want, i want to say that right on our section of the front, the 59th brigade, when it was after avdiyivka there, well , it started very intensively in the month of april, before

these august assaults, we practically did not advance the line of defense... line of defense, but now everything has changed radically since august, not radically, but something has changed, at the beginning i quoted the newspaper by telegraph, this is what the author writes with reference to the commander of the ukrainian air reconnaissance unit, who fought in this area, where you , and he told reporters: i have never seen such a speed during the russian offensive as here, and have you ever seen such a speed of the offensive? by the russian troops, as now at pokrovsk, well, on the 24th, this, february 24, the speed of the enemy’s advance on our land, it can be compared with february 24, february, well , let’s say this, well, approximately not so, of course, it is fast, they they drove very fast on wheeled vehicles, including armored vehicles, so

they already felt defeated, but here it is a little different, you see. here they had a bite to eat what can we do as an option, yes, that we have entered their sacred kursk land, here is one point, that the family needs to be saved, the second point, plus these siege troops and the torture of their commanders over their subordinates, you understand, here we are, here we are distinguish, we are not talking about that and not about the moral side of the russian servicemen there, we are not talking about that now, but i thank you very much. what, what, i have not seen so many storming infantrymen in the entire period, uh, there are a lot of them, thank you, serhiy tsyhotskyi, officer of the 59th separate motorized infantry brigade, was on radio svoboda, we talked about the situation in the pokrovsky area, thank you very much, and

the head of the kremlin , vladimir putin, also boasted about the pace of the advance of russian troops in donbas, and what is interesting, he did it in front of children during an open lesson in one of the russian schools putin noted that during the offensive in the kursk region, the armed forces of ukraine allegedly did not achieve the main task, namely, did not stop the russian offensive in donbas. according to him, the russian army has not had such a pace of offensive in donbas for a long time. listen to what he says the concept was to stop our offensive on the main lines in donbas. the result is known. yes, our people had to go through difficult trials, especially in kurshchyna. but the main goal is to stop our offensive in donbas. the enemy did not reach. now we are not talking about advancing 200 or 300 m forward. we have not had such a pace of advancement in donbas for a long time. the russian armed forces are not returning 200 or 300 square meters under their control. well, putin's statement, it must be said, is somewhat different from the statement of the ukrainian president, during a press conference in kyiv last tuesday,

volodymyr zelenskyy called the situation on the front line near pokrovsk extremely difficult, but also stated that russia's advance in this area had slowed down after ukraine's offensive in kursk oblast. listen to his statement. and before the kurdish operation, was there an advance to pokrovsk? was it faster? or slower, more or less the same pace as i understand, on the open, i think faster, are these things related, related, but a little bit different than you it seems that sometimes it happens that where there are three brigades, there is no difference, there are three brigades or five brigades, the main thing is who is pressing you and in what number, and what your fighters are ready and capable of in this or that direction . and one must understand their strengths and apply those strengths where needed. well, and according to the data of independent analysts, it is possible that the russian troops

are not really advancing in the donbass as fast as putin claims, so it is not necessary to talk about their slowing down, as volodymyr zelenskyi says, at least with of what we see in open sources. yuriy butusov, editor-in-chief of the cenzornet online publication, military correspondent, joins our broadcast, yuriy, i congratulate you, good evening. good evening, i congratulate you, and how would you rate the speed with which russian troops are advancing in donbas? the speed of the advance of the russian troops is very low, the problem is not the speed at all, the problem is that the enemy cannot be stopped, and he is advancing every day, and the pace of their advance is limited exclusively, very limited physical capabilities of infantrymen. all progress is, it is just now. attracts attention, because the enemy has advanced far and has already approached the pokrovsk-marinograd selidov agglomeration, captured the city

of novohorodivka, and this has now been noticed, but such advances, unfortunately, 100, 200, 300 m per day, they have been continuous for approx. one and a half months. and listen, but then why is the western press abounding, again with reference to the ukrainian military, that the speed is incredible... on the high side, this is the first question, and the second question, you say that the speed is low, but no one stops them, if i understood you correctly, that's right, well , look, there is no point in commenting on the western press, because it is far from the events in our country, and it can only someone's comments at which level it is unclear to comment, and we will be able to rely on information directly from the cities and go there, so there are no frantic paces in... in principle, it is worth noting that the enemy is advancing with very small forces in the direction, for example, marrynograd-pokrovsk on the front line of the breakthrough

well, the advance of the enemy's troops on mirnograd-pokrovsk-selidovo is about 18 km wide. on this 18 km wide front, our aerial reconnaissance of several of our brigades, with all of whom i am in contact with, records about 400 enemy infantry per day, this is on the entire front of the attack, that is, not all of them are even storming, it’s just that the enemy is very has a limited amount of armored vehicles, suffered heavy losses in armored vehicles, and the means of breakthrough is, a breakthrough of advancement, there is no breakthrough, for example, small groups of infantry up to five fighters, and single vehicles of armored vehicles are very rarely used sporadically. in fact , the enemy is not storming our positions with armored vehicles all this time, he is not storming in columns, but the enemy is advancing at the expense of these small groups of infantry,

he uses them to identify our individual positions, they are struck by drones in the first place, drones hit the approaches and artillery-mortars, such point strikes are made, but if the enemy is there, the enemy is simply a purposeful action and they are on the same position. go for a few days. with us, due to problems with organization, management, application troops, we cannot oppose such decentralized tactics of the enemy's infantry for a long time now. because, not because there are even no people at all, but because in order to stop such a scattered attack, you need to prepare a defense line in advance, where the number of defenders will also be minimized, where people will be wanted. to the main means of defeat will be drones, anti-aircraft weapons, artillery, mortars, all this must be built, organized, and all this is not

built in this direction, well, not here. donetsk, no osuv, khortytsya, they cannot organize reliable defense arrangements here, that is, the problem is from our side, it is a management problem, all the officers and commanders in the direction are talking about it. you say some sad things, actually. and how did it happen that in donbas in this direction there are so many management problems at the same time, and the lack of high-quality defense fortifications and coordination, so what contributed to this? what happened, is it because all the most combat-ready are in the kurdish direction, or is it not related to the kurdistan at all, because well it's just that the time has come, i don't know, they didn't prepare the mobilized people in time, or something else happened, as you explain it yourself, the war has been going on for a very long time, it's already going on for the third year, and it should be noted that from the very beginning of the war , the main advantage of ukraine was not some ingenious decisions of the command. board, and

this was self-organization, that is, high quality and motivation of the personnel of the ukrainian infantry. i wrote about this, by the way, i spoke, including on radio liberty, even before the start of a large-scale war, back in january of the 22nd year, described that our advantage in this war is the quality of the infantry. so the quality of the infantry is not infinite. people physically cannot work endlessly like machines, and neither can a machine. endlessly, but if you can make a new machine, then new people cannot, and at this stage of the war, in the third year, it is critical now, because of the decrease in the fighting capacity of our infantry, simply because, not even only because of losses, but because of the overtiredness of people, because that needs to be replenished, now the organizational efforts of the state, russia, are of critical importance advances not because she

is training some kind of super soldier. in russia, on the other hand , the training course is very low, most of their attack aircraft go through a two-week training course, some even less, but the enemy is shot on the spot for retreating from their positions or refusing to attack, and they pay the enemy a lot of money now, they are big for russia, and they are driving there into the army by all methods, including all the prisoners there, everyone who has criminal cases, any problems, they are with all their might. er, they are voluntarily forced into the army people, give poor people money, and then put them under army discipline and back and forth, they can't retreat. the enemy has strengthened his infantry, but at the same time the enemy has adopted many of our tactics , the main means of defeat for the russians is now drones on the front, they are buying a large number of drones in combination with an advantage in

the number of artillery shells. and mortar mines, this gives them the opportunity to create an advantage in certain areas of the front, and in these conditions, of course, it is necessary from the ukrainian command that, well we cannot rush someone to the front under the threat of being shot, we need high-quality training, high-quality training of people, high-quality organization, we need to prepare defense lines in advance, not just fortifications , dig trenches somewhere, but these... must be reliably camouflaged from drones, protected fortifications, we don’t do that, we have to have special targeted areas where it is possible, where landings are cut down, and the enemy cannot maneuver infantry covertly, they can be used to identify and destroy them in advance, and of course we need action planning, i.e. the troops should be deployed there in combat units on the defense line, and not exchange in the fight for some ill-equipped espshka in

the pasture. that is, there is a large complex of reasons, it was not noticeable before, because there was a large number of infantry, it compensated for all the shortcomings of management, and now there is no one to compensate for the shortcomings of management, and they come to the fore, a couple of such operational ones, i would say, but very important questions, and now there is a deep state map, which shows the threat of the encirclement of ukrainian troops in the area of ​​karlivka and the karlivsky reservoir, tell me please, what do you know about it? is there a threat there, because for example, we just spoke with a representative of the 59th brigade, he says: yes, i see that the situation is serious, but i know that there are no threats there, maybe you know something about it, of course, if you look at the map, this is a deep coverage of the flanks, of course, it is dangerous, but it should be noted that the enemy is not advancing rapidly, the ukrainian troops, that is, this is the advance...