Length of "hot" frontline now exceeds 1200 kilometres – Ukrainian General Staff

The designated hot contact line now exceeds 1,200 kilometres, covering Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts, where active hostilities are underway.

Source: Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, in an interview with Ukrinform news agency

Quote: "The length of the designated hot contact line now exceeds 1,200 kilometres. However, we are talking about the direct contact line with the enemy in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts, where active hostilities are ongoing."

Details: Hromov added that the operational situation hadn’t changed dramatically during the Ukrainian counteroffensive and featured Russian troops' attempts to reach Donetsk Oblast's administrative border and hold territories in the Donetsk and Tavriia operational areas (Ukraine's east and south, respectively).

The representative of the General Staff clarified that the most intense offensive areas in the Donetsk and Tavriia operational areas are Melitopol and Berdiansk, where Ukrainian units have advanced up to 7.5 km into enemy defences.

To this end, the Brigadier General reported that the Ukrainian troops had liberated nine settlements since the counteroffensive began. The military regained control of almost 160 square kilometres of Ukrainian land.

Hromov stressed that one should not forget about Ukraine’s northern borders with Belarus and Russia, where regular missile and artillery attacks take place, the activities of the Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups remain, and the threat of military invasion persists, as well as the sea coast in Odesa and Mykolaiv oblasts, an area where, regardless of the Russian declining naval capabilities, its landing capabilities cannot be eliminated entirely.

"In addition, there is the border with Transnistria [an unrecognised breakaway state internationally recognised as a part of Moldova and borders Ukraine’s Odesa and Vinnytsia oblasts – ed.], where Russia maintains a limited group of forces. Therefore, the total length of the [front] line could be about 3,800 km," he summed up.

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