Donetsk front crumbling as Russian forces use small group tactics, says head of Ukraine's largest military charity

Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine's east using the tactic of infiltration in small groups, pushing Ukrainian troops out metre by metre.

Source: Taras Chmut, the head of the Come Back Alive foundation, a Ukrainian non-governmental military charity organisation, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda

Details: Chmut noted that the Russians are scaling up their strong points while the Ukrainian defence forces are struggling to address their own vulnerabilities.

Quote: "The Russians are pounding us with guided aerial bombs. Sadly, there is no obvious solution to this problem. The Russians are pumping in infantry, they are using infiltration tactics, they are successfully using armoured vehicles to scale up this infiltration.

What does this mean? Small groups of infantry, three-five people, with a minimum of equipment: one walkie-talkie, water, an assault rifle, no protection.

The task is simple: reach a Ukrainian position or settlement, hide in a basement and do nothing. We kill some of them, but one or two get through. They accumulate, and eventually, they begin attacking from both the front and the rear. In some areas, we repel them; in others, we lose and regain our positions; in some cases, we are forced to retreat. Slowly, metre by metre, foothold by foothold, village by village, the Russians are pushing us out."

Details: Regarding Donetsk Oblast, when asked about the threat of Russian troops reaching Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Chmut emphasised that "there are at most two dozen kilometres left to the border of the oblast" as of 19 December.

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