"The first thing that concerns these so-called volunteer battalions, this is a new approach that the russian federation has very recently launched. A month ago, about 50 subjects of the russian federation received an order to form battalions numbering 500-600 people. To date, we clearly know that eight battalions have been already formed. It is planned to form eight more battalions by the end of the month. There will be such a battalion in every region, including Crimea, Moscow, and St. Petersburg," Vadym Skibitskyi said.

According to the representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, the process of formation of volunteer battalions is taking place through the military commissariats and is under the control of the state.

In addition, according to information of Ukraine’s military intelligence, russia is forming another corps in the Nyzhnii Novhorod region – this is from 10 to 15 thousand people.

“There is also formation, combat cohesion, and other issues related to creating a new formation. And we do not rule out that this corps will be redeployed to our territory. The russian leadership is trying to streamline the process of creating volunteer formations so that they have powerful offensive and defensive capabilities and can act like the battalion tactical groups that we defeated. These are large losses for the russian federation because those were selected, the most combat-ready and experienced units,” said the representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.