Our goals are to hold positions and exhaust enemy – Ground Forces Commander

Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Ground Forces of Ukraine, has said that the Ukrainian army's goals remain to hold its positions and to exhaust the Russians.

Source: Syrskyi in an interview with Reuters

Quote: "Our goals remain unchanged: to hold our positions... to exhaust the enemy, inflicting maximum losses on them."

Details: Syrskyi previously said that despite initial optimism about Ukraine's highly advertised summer counteroffensive, Russian defences had largely held up, limiting early advances to a few kilometres in some places before Moscow forces struck back in other places.

He said Russia is trying to seize the initiative as the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion approaches.

Syrskyi said that the Russians are advancing on different fronts along the eastern front in order to establish full control over the industrial region of Donbas, despite significant losses in manpower and material and technical units of equipment. Russia also hopes to regain the positions it lost in the south of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Ukrainian troops, for their part, are conducting small counterattacks, which Syrskyi called "active defence": they are keeping the Russians on their toes, looking for opportunities to strike while they are trying to seize the initiative.

Syrskyi also noted that combat operations on both sides are being conducted on a smaller scale to conserve ammunition and manpower, suggesting that Russia has also learned to react and prevent losses.

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