The Ukrainian army has come under fire after a mistake during a troop rotation allowed Russian forces to seize 5km of territory, the Financial Times reports.
This highlights the tension in which Kyiv's troops are awaiting the arrival of new aid from the United States.
Deep State, a Ukrainian think tank affiliated with the Defense Ministry, said on Wednesday that the Russian advance late last week in the southern part of the village of Ocheretinye was caused by a rotation that left the area undefended.
“The leadership of the 115th Mechanized Brigade is responsible for the collapse of the defenses in the entire area, which led to significant losses,” the Deep State report states.
This brigade was supposed to transfer the more experienced 47th Brigade there, but it did not make it in time, leaving the area unprotected.
Rotating exhausted troops and introducing new units are sensitive maneuvers, as they expose troops to Russian suicide drones, artillery strikes, and heavy airstrikes. Small errors in timing can leave parts of the front unmanned.
“Rotation can cause problems, and we’ve seen it before,” said Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finnish company Black Bird Group, who has been following the fighting. “We don’t know exactly what happened in this case, but whatever the mistake was, the Russians were able to exploit it, and Ukraine lost ground without any significant fighting.”.
