Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
- Ukraine has received various Western tanks, weapons systems, fighting vehicles, and armor.
- But Russia has often sidelined the assets with trenches, anti-tank mines, and fortified defenses.
- An expert told Insider the West's piecemeal rollout gave Russia time to adapt to each weapons system.
About two months have passed since Ukraine launched its long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces — but reclaiming the occupied territory has been slow and meticulous.
Kyiv's troops continue to struggle while navigating heavily fortified Russian defensive lines, which include extensive trenches, barbed wire, landmines, and anti-tank ditches.
The complex defensive lines offer insight into how Russia plans to grind Ukraine's counteroffensive to a halt — but more importantly, they demonstrate how Moscow was given ample time to adapt to what weapons and assets Ukraine was getting from Western partners, including the US.
Because the rollout of Western assets has been piecemeal — with the US and its allies mulling over which weapons to send and when — Russian forces "had time to reequip or reconstitute themselves, dig in, and retake the initiative in some places," George Barros, a geospatial intelligence team lead and Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, told Insider.
Thomas Alvarez/Idaho Army National Guard
The US and its allies have announced billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine since the war began 17 months ago. But the decision-making and timelines have been anything but smooth. US President Joe Biden and the Pentagon in particular have expressed concerns over sending Ukraine certain assets — like prized F16 fighter jets — for fears of Russian escalation.
They've also gone back-and-forth on whether Ukraine needs certain systems, like US-made Abrams tanks.
Ukrainians like presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak criticized the US' lack of a plan, who has said Ukraine has shown it needs F-16s and other assets.
"Ideally, the plan for giving Ukraine these capabilities will have taken into account: When are the Ukrainians going to take the initiative? When are the Russians going to be tired? When are the windows of opportunity to exploit? What are the time-space dynamics that show when the Russians benefit from certain decisions being prolonged versus being made sooner or later?" Barros said.
Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
The problem, according to Barros, "is that the current policy is we're giving Ukraine some of these big-ticket items, and even though we've come to the correct conclusion to give them to Ukraine, the timing has been suboptimal, and the timing windows have enabled the Russian to be able to make mitigations, and find ways to improvise against these systems, degrading their ultimate effectiveness."
In other words, Barros said, the Russians have been able to learn to deal with one newly introduced system at a time.
That response has been seen across Russia's defensive lines. The countermeasures are clear: swaths of landmines have slowed and often stalled advances of advanced Western tanks — such as the German-made Leopard 2, a fast, highly maneuverable battle tank that boasts various firepower assets and some ballistic and mine protection — and US-provided Bradley fighting vehicles.
While these assets carefully navigate anti-tank mines like the Soviet TM-62, they're left vulnerable to Russia's arsenal.
Putin's forces have waves of artillery, kamikaze drones, and KA-52 attack helicopters armed with anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) that can rip through heavy armor.
Viktor Fridshon/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
In some cases, Ukrainian troops have had to abandon tanks and infantry that have been surrounded by deadly minefields or stuck in muddy ditches, instead opting to move forward on foot.
To deal with Ukraine's mine clearers and sappers, Russia has stacked anti-tank mines to destroy de-mining equipment that can only handle so much explosive force. Fake trenches along the defensive lines are rigged with remotely detonated mines to lure and trap troops.
And anti-tank ditches and pyramid-shaped concrete obstacles called dragon's teeth have swallowed vehicles or knocked them off-kilter, preventing Ukraine from using its heavy armor or fighting vehicles to their full usefulness.
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Ukraine's current multifaceted problems raise a question: What does this mean for their counteroffensive's success?
It's too early to tell, Barros said. But the problem they're facing right now can't be shrugged away and Ukrainians will need to rely on scrappy instincts, like they do with strapping explosives to commercially available drones.
"This is going to be a long, protracted fight," he told Insider, "I think there are lessons that we should take away and learn from this because this war's going to be around for a long time."