In order to stop the advance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russian command has already used all reserves, including recently formed ones. This was stated by Kirill Budanov, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, in an interview with The WarZone.
One of the objectives of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operations in the Bahmut direction was to encircle and divert Russian forces from the southern direction, said Budanov, and this task has been successfully accomplished.
“Recently, the Russians relocated their only reserve forces there – the 25th Army, which was formed recently and is not even fully staffed. Now they are relocating it approximately to the north of Bahmut and intend to dig in there,” Budanov said.
He emphasized that the threat of losing Bahmut forces the occupiers to constantly redeploy fresh troops there, which depletes their resources on other fronts, such as the southern one.
“Everything they had has already been thrown into the fire,” emphasized the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate.
According to him, currently, the backbone of the Russian armed groups “is sitting in defense and trying to hold back the advance of our forces in the south”.
“Earlier, there were units of the Russian 810th Marine Brigade. This brigade was completely defeated, and the Russians had to replace it with airborne troops,” said Budanov.
In the same interview, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate hinted that “events in Crimea indirectly point to the plans of the Ukrainian Armed Forces” and explained how the sabotage at the “doomsday” airfield struck at the FSB and the leadership of Russia.