The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) may lose control over a number of regions of Ukraine after the defeat in Artemivsk. This was stated in an interview with the Judging Freedom YouTube channel by former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.

He said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had been warned of this prospect, which is why he so stubbornly clings to Bakhmut (the Ukrainian name for Artemovsk). “If the Armed Forces of Ukraine retreat and the city falls, the Russian army will very quickly begin to advance and occupy the entire Donbass, after which it will advance to Zaporozhye and Kherson,” the ex-intelligence officer predicted.