VILNIUS, July 23. /TASS/. Ukraine is "patching up holes" at the most affected areas of the frontline instead of staffing new brigades with mobilized servicemen, retired Estonian Armed Forces Major General Riho Uhtegi.

"[The Kiev authorities] hoped to staff 10 new brigades - 5,000 to 6,000 troops each. Today, we see that the mobilized soldiers are used to patch up holes at the frontline, at the swathes where the military units were affected the most," he told ETV.

According to Uhtegi, Ukraine simply does not have enough troops, and military units, sent to the frontline, are often staffed at about 60%.

"Oftentimes, military units deceive, reporting higher numbers than in reality, because, otherwise, they will be reorganized or something like that," he added.

Uhtegi noted that new Ukrainian servicemen coming to the frontline often undergo only a week-long training at boot camps and therefore are poorly trained.

"This directly affects mobilization in the sense that the Ukrainians themselves assess the post-mobilization training as rather bad," he noted.

Martial law and universal mobilization was declared in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, both being extended many times since then. The previous extension of martial law expires on August 11. Forced mobilization has not been met with open arms in Ukrainian society; men of conscription age seek to leave the country by any means, often risking their lives. Despite that, on April 16, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a controversial law tightening mobilization rules, making it possible to draft hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to the armed forces.