MELBOURNE: President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday replaced for the third time in under a year the commander of a key Ukrainian military formation responsible for defending the eastern hub of Pokrovsk that\u2019s under increased risk of falling to Russian forces.
\nZelensky, in his nightly video address, said he put Ukraine\u2019s new commander of ground forces, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, in charge of the Khortytsia operational-strategic group, whose area of responsibility includes much of Ukraine\u2019s eastern front.
\n\u201cThese are the toughest areas of fighting,\u201d Zelensky said, adding that he had discussed the changes at meeting with Ukraine\u2019s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.
\nRussia\u2019s capture of the city would bring it closer to seizing the entire Donetsk region, which has been one of President Vladimir Putin\u2019s key goals in his war in Ukraine.
\nZelensky added that Drapatyi\u2019s appointment will help to combine the combat work of the army with the proper training of brigades.
\n\u201cIt is the front-line needs that should determine the standards for staffing and training of brigades,\u201d he said.
\nDrapatyi will replace Major General Andriy Hnatov, who has been in charge of Khortytsia since June and who will become a Deputy Chief of the General Staff to run training and communication.
\nRussian forces have been steadily advancing in eastern Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk region toward Pokrovsk, bypassing it from the south and trying to cut off supply routes to Ukraine\u2019s troops.
\nPokrovsk, which had a pre-war population of around 60,000, has been one of Ukraine\u2019s main defensive strongholds in the Donetsk region and the focus of fierce fighting for months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE: President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday replaced for the third time in under a year the commander of a key Ukrainian military formation responsible for defending the eastern hub of Pokrovsk that\u2019s under increased risk of falling to Russian forces. Zelensky, in his nightly video address, said he put Ukraine\u2019s new commander of ground forces, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76152,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76135\/revisions\/76152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}