Ukraine is facing to find new recruits, while every day more and more soldiers desert.
Ukraine is facing to find new recruits, while every day more and more soldiers desert.
By Özgür Altınbaş, Donetsk / Russia
Vittorio Nicola Rangeloni, a Russian/Italian journalist living in Donetsk, described the latest situation on the Ukrainian front. “Having lost control of Ugledar, Selidovo and Gornyak, the Ukrainian army is about to lose control of Kurakhovo,” Rangeloni said, noting that Russian armed forces are constantly advancing on the Donbass front. Emphasizing that all these places represent important links in the Ukrainian military logistics chain in Donetsk Oblast, Rangeloni said that Russia may start thinking about seizing Pokrovsk and Mirnograd after taking control of Kurakhovo.
‘A wide corridor will be opened’
The Russian/Italian journalist noted that Pokrovsk is the last city controlled by Kyiv in the central part of the Donetsk region. “In addition, having completed operations in this area, the Russian army may begin to enter new directions of the front, such as the urban agglomeration of Konstantinovka, Kramatorsk and Slaviansk,” Rangeloni said, emphasizing that this would open a wide corridor for Moscow up to the Dnepropetrovsk region. Ukraine’s falling morale and the increasing difficulty of finding new troops could have a domino effect.”
‘Plans went wrong in Kursk’
Rangeloni also commented on Ukraine’s Kursk operation. “The aim of the Ukrainian commanders was to force Russia to shift resources from the Donbass to a new front,” the journalist said, ”thus, halting Russia’s rapid advance from Avdeevka to Pokrovsk. In reality, Ukrainian troops were stuck in a complicated situation in the Kursk region, so much so that they needed the participation of elite brigades that could be much more useful in the Donetsk region, where the Russian army continues to advance in record time.”
Are Koreans on the war front?
In recent weeks, there have been many claims that troops from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are fighting in Ukraine. Rangeloni noted that Western intelligence services first mentioned the deployment of thousands and then tens of thousands of Korean soldiers on the Russian front in Kursk but provided no evidence of their participation in the war. Recalling that Moscow and Pyongyang have signed military cooperation agreements, the journalist said: “This could technically envisage the deployment of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea soldiers to fight in Russia, but what we are seeing now is speculation devoid of concrete facts.” Rangeloni also emphasized that even if DPRK troops were deployed in the region (around 10,000), it would not change the balance of the conflict, but in any case, it is a very important geopolitical signal.
Existential problem in the army
Speaking about the mobilization in the Ukrainian army, Rangeloni said that the army is trying to expand in order to cope with the losses at the front. “Every day recruiters are picking up citizens from the streets and forcibly conscripting them,” the journalist said, adding that new recruits often do not receive proper training and, above all, have little motivation. The target of 150,000 new recruits is not unattainable, but in any case, large numbers are not synonymous with quality. These factors can lead to dangerous consequences.” Rangeloni pointed to another existential problem for the stability of the Ukrainian army, namely the number of deserters, which since 2022 (according to Ukrainian sources) is between 100,000 and 170,000, and the number is updated every day.