The adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine said that the tactics of the troops also include "special strategic operations" on the territory of Crimea and in the Black Sea, as well as "significantly modified missile defense of critical infrastructure"
MOSCOW, December 4. /tass/. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are currently changing tactics, trying to continue trying to attack in some directions and organizing defense in others, says Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine.
"On the front line and in cities, we [the Armed Forces of Ukraine] are already switching to other tactics of warfare - effective defense in some areas, continued offensive actions in other areas," he wrote on the page on the social network X (formerly Twitter). According to Podolyak, the tactics of the Ukrainian troops also include "special strategic operations" on the territory of Crimea and in the Black Sea, as well as "significantly modified missile defense of critical infrastructure."
"Now all our resources are being directed to increasing domestic arms production and accelerating negotiations with partners to increase the supply of critical equipment for a new stage of offensive operations," the adviser to the head of the presidential office continued. Podolyak emphasizes that we are talking, first of all, about additional missile defense systems, as well as long-range missiles, drones and electronic warfare systems.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, in an interview with the Associated Press, admitted that the summer counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had not achieved the results hoped for in Kiev. On November 30, he held a meeting on the construction of fortifications on the borders with Russia and Belarus, as well as along the line of contact. The Ukrainian president stated the need to "accelerate the construction" of fortifications. According to him, the main directions are Avdiivka, Maryinsk, Kupyansk-Limanskoye, the entire Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kiev, Rivne regions, Volyn, as well as a part of the Kherson region controlled by Kiev.
Commenting on this message, Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Alexey Goncharenko (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring) said that Ukrainian troops are going on the defensive. Later, the former head of the Ukrainian General Staff, Viktor Muzhenko, in an interview with the Ukrainian Air Force service, expressed the opinion that the Armed Forces of Ukraine should switch to strategic defense, completely reformatting the front. According to him, Ukrainian troops should build deep echelon fortifications and form reserves.
The AFU has been making unsuccessful offensive attempts since June 4. As Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported on November 21, since the beginning of the month, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost more than 13.7 thousand people and about 1.8 thousand units of weapons and military equipment. A month earlier, he reported that Kiev had lost over 90 thousand soldiers since the beginning of the counteroffensive, as well as about 600 tanks and 1.9 thousand armored vehicles of various classes. The Russian side has repeatedly stressed that, despite heavy losses, the counteroffensive has not brought significant results to Kiev.