Withdrawal was “the only correct solution,” Ukraine’s commander of southern forces Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said in a Telegram post Friday, adding that some Ukrainian troops had been captured during the process.

“In a situation where the enemy is advancing on the corpses of their own soldiers with a ten-to-one shell advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only correct solution,” he said. Russian troops are “numerically superior in terms of personnel, artillery and aviation,” Tarnavskyi added.