“Precision work needed”: SBU Colonel Kostenko on situation in Kurakhove sector

He shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

“As for the Kurakhove direction, it is indeed complicated, complicated due to the fact that a kind of 'bag' has formed there in the direction of Hirnyk, which is really quite complicated. And we need to do everything to prevent the enemy from reaching Hirnyk, because some of our troops will be surrounded. That's why our command needs to do a very fine job of commanding the troops and supplying the troops so that if we see that the enemy is still pushing and moving towards Hirnyk, we will need to level this arc and retreat. Or the other is counteroffensive actions that would force the enemy to retreat to its previous positions in order to destroy this bag. Given that we have seen that it has been very difficult to level the situation lately, I think we need to be careful that these units do not get surrounded,” he said.

Roman Kostenko noted that the Russian army lacks reserves at the front, but despite this, the situation in some areas remains difficult.  

“But there is another story that the enemy has just moved forward here, in this direction, about 20 kilometers wide along the entire front, it is like a ledge. And the positive thing is that we can estimate that the enemy is not able to conduct an offensive on all of this, at least in several directions, at once. The fact that they stopped a little bit in the Pokrovsk direction and even in Hirnyk, this ledge has been there for a week or more, and they cannot close it. This suggests that they still do not have enough forces to attack in several directions. They gather forces, then attack in a single direction and cannot now have enough reserves to develop this offensive. I think that this is also the point of the Kursk operation, which also supports and pulls back some troops, but I will say once again that the situation there is really complicated,” added the SBU colonel.

• Over the past day, September 16, 157 combat clashes took place on the Russian-Ukrainian front. The situation remains the most tense in the Kurakhove and Pokrovsk sectors.