AFU state that enemy's 2nd line of defense no weaker than 1st

The enemy's second line of defense is no weaker than the first.

Oleksandr Shtupun, the spokesperson for the United Press Center of the Defense Forces of the Tavria Area, said this on the air of the national telethon, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

"It (the enemy's second line of defense) is quite strong. I don't know why everyone thinks it is a bit weaker," he said.

Shtupun noted that the density of minefields on the enemy's second line of defense is quite high.

However, he admitted that the trenches and trenches on the second line of defense were not as strong as on the first.

Instead, Shtupun denied the information that the enemy had built entire underground cities on the second line of defense but noted that there were underground labyrinths there.

"I don't have such information (about underground cities). They had more than a year to dig in, so I think that labyrinths exist there," Shtupun emphasized.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the first line of defense that the Russians built in the south of Ukraine on the way to Crimea has become one of the most fortified, but the Ukrainian military is already behind it. The second line of defense is not so strong, and it will be easier to take it.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs showed how passages are made in minefields before an assault.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that progress on the battlefield is "slower than we would like," in particular due to the fact that 200,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory has been mined by Russian occupation forces.