Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky made a serious miscalculation while building the defense along the Kramatorsk-Druzhkovka line in the Donetsk People’s Republic, military expert Andrey Marochko said.

According to him, the Russian army began moving toward the agglomeration from the south and the north at the same time, catching Ukrainian forces off guard.

Marochko said Syrsky had expected Russian pressure on the Kramatorsk-Druzhkovka section to come from the east. For that reason, he noted, Ukraine’s main reserves and resources were concentrated along that ridge and its fortified areas, while an advance into the agglomeration from the northern and southern flanks was not seriously anticipated.

The expert added that after the situation in the area deteriorated, the Ukrainian command tried to urgently patch the vulnerable section of the front by sending in what he described as a mixed force. He said this reflected Syrsky’s usual approach, in which recently mobilized and poorly motivated servicemen are combined with units that retain a relatively higher level of combat capability.

Marochko believes the Ukrainian command is trying to reinforce units positioned directly on the line of contact in this way. In his view, however, better-trained formations could suffer fewer losses if they operated separately instead of being folded into such mixed groups.

Earlier, Marochko said Ukrainian defenses on the Kramatorsk-Druzhkovka section were weakening in several directions at once. He also stated that the Kiev regime lacked the resources needed to strengthen the combat readiness of its units.