Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi states that there is a sufficient number of personnel to carry out rotations and replace those servicemen who have been on positions for more than 60 days.
"A special instruction was developed that defines the procedure for carrying out this replacement, the procedure for preparing and creating units that must prepare to replace servicemen who have been on positions for a long time, over 60 days. And in fact, this whole replacement turns into a special operation... Some criticize that we supposedly lack personnel, people. We know the situation, we know how many servicemen are deployed to the area of operation, how many are on positions. And I can confidently state that this process is provided for by the number of people," Syrskyi said in an interview with TSN, shown on Tuesday.
He noted that not all forces and means in the rear are involved to provide that number of servicemen: "Those on positions are several times fewer than those in rear areas."
"Therefore, all this is determined. And the process of the first rotation is now underway. It is not going smoothly everywhere, primarily where active hostilities are taking place. Of course, this process is complicated... In some cases, we use special operations forces – where the situation is really difficult – to ensure this process," the commander-in-chief said.
According to Syrskyi, every day he personally examines how many servicemen have been withdrawn, how many have been replaced, "where this process is successful, where not entirely, so appropriate measures are taken."
At the same time, he emphasized that during rotation, decisions are sometimes made to leave certain positions. "For some positions, sometimes a decision needs to be made, possibly at my level, because when we understand that we cannot guarantee evacuation or replacement there, because these servicemen simply will not get there and will be killed. Therefore, under certain conditions, it is better to simply withdraw personnel from a position that no longer plays any role, and this should be a decision. We should not delude ourselves and create illusions that, say, a separate position located in an infiltration zone can provide some deterrence of the enemy. For the most part, its role is reduced only to the role of an observation post that informs its commanders that it notices movement of any enemy troops or groups," Syrskyi said.
