Ukraine commander vows to boost troops on eastern front

Ukraine's army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi says he will strengthen troops deployed on the eastern front with reserves, ammunition and equipment after he visited two key Ukrainian-held sites in the Donetsk region.

Russian forces are advancing in the Donetsk region at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, and the defence ministry in Moscow on Friday claimed control of two new settlements there.

But Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces were continuing to repel Russian advances after he paid a visit to units near the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhhove.

"Based on the results of the work, all necessary decisions have been made to strengthen the units with reserves, additional ammunition, weapons and military equipment," he said on the Telegram messaging app.

"We continue to restrain the enemy and inflict heavy losses in terms of their manpower and equipment."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy replaced the commander of the military's land forces on Friday, putting Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi in charge.

Zelenskiy said "internal changes" were needed as he announced the 42-year-old would replace Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, who took the helm of the land forces in a major shake-up in February 2024.

"The main task is to increase noticeably the combat efficiency of our army, ensure the quality of servicemen training, and introduce innovative approaches to people management in Ukraine's armed forces," Zelenskiy said.

"The Ukrainian army needs internal changes to achieve our state's goals in full," he said on Telegram after meeting his top military and government officials.

Drapatyi is well respected in the army and military analysts praised his appointment.

Drapatyi took command of the Kharkiv front in May and managed to stop the Russian offensive in the northeast, stabilising the front.

Zelenskiy also said that he appointed Colonel Oleh Apostol, commander of the 95th separate air-assault brigade, as a deputy to Syrskyi.

He praised both Drapatyi and Apostol, saying "they had proved their efficiency on the battlefield".

Ukraine is on the back foot on the battlefield as it fights a much bigger and better-equipped enemy 33 months after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The war against Russia has reached a critical juncture.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Ukraine's "decision-making centres" with its new ballistic missile in response to Ukrainian forces using foreign-supplied missiles to strike back inside Russia.

Russia on Friday handed over the bodies of 502 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the war.

According to the Coordination Staff for Prisoner of War Matters, 64 of the soldiers were killed in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia and a further 24 in the Luhansk region in the east of the country.

Another 17 of the soldiers were killed inside Russia.

In August, Ukrainian units invaded the Russian border region of Kursk, where they still hold an area of several hundred square kilometres.

According to Russian media reports, Russia received the bodies of 48 Russian soldiers in return.

The handover took place under the mediation of the International Red Cross.

with DPA