MOSCOW, August 5. /TASS/. Commander of the Ukrainian Support Forces Brigadier General Dmitry Gerega said it is difficult to conduct offensive operations in the southern direction due to the Russian tiered defense there and Kiev's lack of engineering equipment.

"The complexity of conducting offensive actions by the Ukrainian forces in the southern direction is that the enemy has <...> arranged a multi-level system of engineering barriers, consisting of several strips of 10 to 40 km each. Their density is quite high," the Ukrainian military media center quoted him as saying on its Telegram channel.

According to Gerega, the barrier strips include minefields, anti-tank trenches, concrete pyramids and wire obstacles. "Overcoming such barriers requires a significant number of engineering and sapper units, whose personnel must be able to create passages in the enemy's mine-explosive barriers both manually and with the help of special engineering equipment, the availability of which is insufficient for such a number of barriers," he admitted.

Gerega pointed out that the Ukrainian armed forces have formed five engineering and sapper battalions. About 200 servicemen have already been trained abroad, and another 150 will complete their training by the end of August. In addition, Ukrainian engineering units have received up to 100 pieces of specialized equipment from foreign partners. Crews for this equipment are currently being trained abroad.