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A three-day delay in the arrival of reinforcements and the escape of some military units have led to the tragedy near Ilovaisk where a number of Ukrainian army units were surrounded and sustained significant losses when leaving the encirclement.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said this said in an interview with Ukrainian television channels on Sunday, Liga.Novosti reported.

"The first [cause of what happened] was the surrender of positions, which helped encircle the military. The second cause - now I can say this - is that a strike group on restoring combat capacity, which had to come to the rescue, arrived three days later... If it went according to plan, our actions would differ dramatically," he said.