It’s been a tough year for the Ukrainian army. Even if Russian tanks are no longer at the gates of kyiv as in the first weeks of the invasion, in 2022, “the intensity of the fighting is very high” on the eastern front and “the situation is very tense on the 1,130 kilometers of the front line”recognizes without qualms the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Oleksandr Syrsky, who agreed to draw up for The World a military assessment of the past year.
Met in a basement in Kharkiv, Friday December 13, while Russia had just carried out at dawn yet another attack against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, General Syrsky recalled that he had been appointed head of the army on February 8, replacing General Valeri Zalouzhny, while the battle raged for control of the town of Avdiïvka, which would fall a week later into Russian hands. A first test, heralding a year of Russian progress in the Donbass.
Since taking command, it has been, says the general, “a year of intense fighting, in ten operational sectors, facing an enemy who uses significant forces to break down defenses” Ukrainians, and who also wants, through its missile and drone attacks against cities and infrastructures, “ruin the country”.
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