The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that he would replace some of the military leaders of the eastern front.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi said that after three days of work, it was already clear why some brigades managed to stop the Russian offensive, while others did not.
Earlier, Ukraine withdrew its troops from Avdiivka, an important eastern town besieged by Russian troops.
* Volodymyr Zelensky said that this decision was made to save lives.
Avdiivka, which has been the midst of heavy fighting for months, has been a battlefield town since 2014, when Russian-backed fighters seized large swathes of eastern Donetsk and the Luhansk region.
The fall of Avdiivka marks the biggest change in the more than 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line since Russian forces captured the nearby town of **mut in May 2023.
This week, the Ukrainian military said it had withdrawn from two other villages near Avdiivka and lost more territory due to the shortage of ** and ammunition from its Western allies.
General Syrsky said that he would change those commanders whose orders and actions threatened the lives of the troops.
"First of all, it depends on the brigade commander, his level of training, experience, ability to make adequate and balanced decisions and understanding of the full responsibility for performing assigned tasks and the life and health of subordinates," he wrote on Telegram.
There is no doubt that the level of training and coordination of the brigade headquarters, where the commander exercises authority, plays an important role.
Accordingly, I have dispatched teams of experts to individual brigades with problems with preparedness at Headquarters to transfer experience and provide assistance. ”
However, General Syrsky praised some of the brigades and promised - after listening to the front-line troops - to provide reserves, ammunition and expertise to support them.
He insisted that the situation at the front "remains difficult, but under control."
Also, in Russia, two buildings in St. Petersburg were damaged, and local residents reported a huge ** incident in which windows were blown up and people were evacuated on Saturday morning.
St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said there was "an incident" in the eastern region of Kra** Gvardsky.
There were no personnel **, but residents were evacuated from their apartments, Beglov said, without explaining the cause or nature of the incident.
According to Reuters, Russia reported that it could have been caused by a downed Ukrainian drone that was flying towards a nearby fuel depot.
There has been no official confirmation of this from the Kremlin or official**.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, authorities said two people were killed and eight others injured after a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in the southern port city of Odessa on Saturday.