Speaking to "Ukraina stuudio," Col. Märk said: "There has been talk of this same Kursk-Sumy sector, the Kharkiv sector, and also the South Zaporizhia direction, but these directions have been active all the time. At the moment, I can't directly see an opening of any completely new directions, and any capacity to organize any large wave of attacks. I can't see that the Russian Federation would have such forces, or that such forces could be concentrated in specific sectors."

Meanwhile, pressure on existing fronts has intensified in recent weeks. There are now about 140 attacks per day on average, up from under 100 in previous weeks.

"Speaking of more intensive sectors, one is definitely the Sumy and Kursk direction. Already last summer, when the Ukrainians occupied Russian territory there, the Russian Federation deployed an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 troops there. This operation has been going on for months," Märk said.

"As for the formation of some kind of additional force group and the opening of an additional sector in this specific direction, I think we are talking about this same sector. Naturally, the Russian Federation is interested in that part of the territory that the Ukrainians continue to hold or control, approximately such an area of 50 square kilometers on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation is naturally interested in pushing back the Ukrainian forces from there, in bringing this military activity in this sector to Ukrainian territory as well," he went on.

According to Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Oleksandr Syrsky, Russia has already launched a new offensive in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

The Russian Federation has an estimated 600,000 soldiers committed in Ukraine, the colonel said.

He added that Ukraine's defense has improved in terms of both personnel and fortifications.

"Ukraine has made progress in replenishing its armed forces with personnel, and the situation is certainly much better in carrying out its mobilization compared with last autumn. The goal is to assemble an army of up to a million men – we are certainly not there yet. But this military force is certainly not smaller than the military force of the Russian Federation," he said.

"When talking about their defensive positions, trenches, field fortifications, defensive lines, the Ukrainians have developed these defensive positions throughout the war. Today, we can say that Ukraine's defenses are intact," Märk said, though he acknowledged Ukraine currently lacks the strength to liberate occupied territories.

Things are at a bit of a deadlock, Märk noted.

"The other party, the Russian Federation, at the same time does not have the strength and equipment to bring about any major change in this war. It can be said that neither party is currently capable of bringing about any major change on the battlefield," he said.

Defense minister: Focus of security guarantees is regeneration of the Ukrainian army

Also appearing on "Ukraina Stuudio" was Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur (Reform).

The minister recently visited Ukraine, meeting with Rustem Umerov, Minister of Strategic Industries Herman Smetanin, and Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian intelligence.

Host Epp Ehand asked him about what was discussed at these meetings, developments in Brussels, where he met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and the status of an allied plan to deploy troops to Ukraine.

Pevkur said: "There are two different sides – one is the so-called coalition of the willing, which we talked about on Thursday and then on Friday there was the Ukrainian contact group."

"The most accurate keyword for this coalition of the willing right now is that we don't have a plan yet, though we are in the planning process. We more or less have a military assessment," Pevkur went on.

The number of troops which could be deployed depends on what happens with the ceasefire, he said.

"First of all, we are talking about the European forces, from the perspective of regeneration," the minister said. "Ukraine currently has 110 brigades, which probably need to be regenerated or reformed into a somewhat smaller number," Pevkur added.

"The focus, it seems to me, in providing security guarantees will be on the regeneration of Ukraine's own army; after that we can already talk about whether and how many fighters or instructors will be sent to the ground and where exactly they will be. So there are a lot of other conditions," the minister went on.

"But let us not forget that these conditions for a ceasefire do not yet exist, and we cannot rule out that in fact perhaps one of the conditions is that they do not want to see anyone from outside Ukraine there," he concluded.

A map of the Ukraine fronts updated in real time is here.

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