By Tim Lister, Daria Tarasova-Markina
(CNN) — Ukrainian forces are under growing pressure in the south of the country, where less well-equipped units are vastly outnumbered by Russian brigades that have taken hundreds of square kilometers of territory in recent weeks.
The Russians have advanced across open countryside in several areas of the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. One Ukrainian officer with the country’s security service (SBU) told CNN on Wednesday that the situation in the region was “intense.”
“The enemy is trying to strengthen its negotiating position by attempting to capture more territory,” said the officer, who goes by the call sign “Bankir.”
The Russians were using small groups of infantry “who are trying to break through by any means, by any route, to the positions that are least protected,” he added.
Much of the recent fighting has been in and around the town of Huliaipole. Huliaipole lies some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the regional capital Zaporizhzhia, which had a pre-war population of more than 700,000.
At a meeting on Sunday attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian commander in the region, Col. Gen. Andrei Ivanaev, claimed the town had been taken. Ivanaev told Putin that his forces had taken over 210 square kilometers of territory in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions since early December, feeding the Kremlin’s narrative that ultimately Russia will achieve its goal of occupying four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine.
The unofficial Ukrainian conflict mapper Deepstate reported on Monday that Ukrainian troops continued to hold their positions in parts of Huliaipole but it was now a “grey zone,” with the Russians having “many times more personnel.”
Reinforcing positions in the town was difficult because it was low-lying, Deepstate said.
The Ukrainians rely extensively on drones in areas where they are short of infantry. In open countryside they are effective in taking out Russian platoons. But built-up areas of abandoned buildings and basements afford protection for advancing troops.
Last week, a video showed Russian troops had taken over a Ukrainian command post in Huliaipole and were examining laptops and files left behind.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military, Oleksandr Syrskyi, acknowledged the capture of the command post “due to weak defenses.”
A territorial brigade “could not withstand the enemy’s pressure during the fighting,” Syrskyi said, and gradually retreated, but criticized the battalion for leaving behind confidential information.
“Ukrainian forces may remain only in (Huliaipole’s) western part,” according to another independent monitor, the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT). “Under these conditions, Huliaipole, much like Pokrovsk, may already be effectively captured,” it said.
“These troops held their positions for a long time and suffered extremely heavy losses over recent months yet were not rotated to the rear for rest and reconstitution,” CIT added.
What happened in Huliaipole goes to the heart of the Ukrainian military’s dilemma. Its troops are vastly outnumbered along some parts of the 1,000-kilometer front line and are struggling to mobilize additional forces to compensate for losses, according to several commentators.
“That means commanders must make hard choices about where to attack, where to defend and where to hope the Russians don’t exploit gaps in Ukrainian lines,” wrote analyst David Axe on Wednesday.
“A few territorial battalions cannot be expected to hold off a Russian motor rifle brigade, especially if the territorials lack strong support from adjacent artillery and drone units,” Axe noted.
The lack of a coherent command among Ukrainian forces in the sout