MOSCOW, March 7. /TASS/. Ukraine’s military will have to retreat westward soon due to unprepared defensive lines, Alexey Getman, military expert and Ukrainian National Guard major (retired) said on Thursday.

"There is a feeling that the front will move westward because fortifications are unprepared and the enemy is reinforcing reserves," the retired officer said in a live broadcast on the Espreso television channel.

Ukrainian troops can only try to stabilize the situation, the expert said, adding that this situation "may last long" unless Kiev’s partners came to its rescue.

In the wake of the Ukrainian army’s failed counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 and stalled Western aid, the Kiev regime announced its plans in December last year to switch to defense and stressed the need to build defensive lines.

On January 19, the Ukrainian government made a decision to allocate a record amount of about $466 million for building defensive lines. On March 4, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal reported that the coordination headquarters for building fortifications in Ukraine was working daily and already about $525 million had been allocated for this purpose since the beginning of the year.

As The Wall Street Journal reported on March 7, Ukraine is trying to build fortifications similar to the defensive lines created by Russian troops more than a year ago. Ukraine is actively working to dig anti-tank ditches and trenches west of Avdeyevka, the paper said.