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- Russia began laying minefields deeper than normal to make them harder for Ukraine to cross.
- They didn't have enough mines to do that everywhere though, according to a new report.
- This resulted in irregular and inconsistent minefields that still have created headaches for Ukraine.
As it constructed its formidable defenses, Russia attempted to make its minefields deeper and harder for Ukrainian forces to cross but couldn't get enough mines to fully execute the plan everywhere. The inconsistent and often improvised approach that followed, however, still created headaches for advancing Ukrainian forces.
A new report from Royal United Service Institute land warfare experts Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds on Ukraine's fight details Russian adaptations during the ongoing counteroffensive, and irregular minefields are identified as particularly challenging aspects of the Russian defensive strategy that demand not only more equipment but also innovative solutions.
A standard Russian minefield is roughly 120 meters deep, but Russian forces found that Ukraine could breach these minefields with equipment like the Soviet-era UR-77 Meteorit mine-clearing vehicle or the US-provided M58 Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC) that blasts a narrow lane through mines.
So Russia moved to extend the depth of the minefields to 500 meters, "well beyond any rapid breaching capability," the new report said.
From a logistics standpoint, this plan created a problem, as Russian brigades were equipped to put down minefields in a manner consistent with the country's warfighting doctrine.
"The increased depth of the fields means that Russian forces have had insufficient mines to consistently meet this lay down with a density of mines consistent with doctrine," Watling and Reynolds wrote. Essentially, the minefields got bigger but so did the space between the mines. In other cases, Russian engineers simply did what they could to try to bog down Ukraine's assault forces as long as possible.
The result was that Russian minefields became irregular, which isn't necessarily out of the ordinary to begin with given terrain and time considerations. They varied in size and shape, and they consisted of improvised mine configurations that sometimes emphasized lethality over depth and density.
For instance, the Russian ground forces and combat engineers tasked with blunting the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive sometimes put two anti-tank "mines together – one atop the other – compensating for reduced density by ensuring that vehicles are immobilised by single mine-strikes," even those assets "equipped with dozer blades."
This particular Russian improvisation is one Michael Kofman, a Russia expert, also noted after a recent trip to Ukraine, explaining in a podcast that Russia is "doubling, tripling them up." Citing conversations with Ukrainian forces, he also revealed that Russia sometimes built fake trench traps rigged with explosives.
Because Russian forces were unable to consistently carry out their plan for deeper minefields as intended due to the insufficient supply of mines, "the result has been improvisation of explosive devices, the diversification of the range of mines ceded, and the decreasing regularity of minefields," the RUSI report said.
And this has caused problems for the Ukrainians, the authors said, writing that "although the consistency of the minefields is now diminished, this has significantly complicated Ukrainian planning and minefield reconnaissance."
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Russian minefields, specifically those covered by indirect fire assets like mortars and artillery or aviation elements like attack helicopters, have been a constant challenge for Ukraine throughout its counteroffensive.
And the inconsistency and irregularity of the Russian minefields has only further complicated matters.
Presently, "Ukrainian operations are inherently limited in their tempo by the fact that as Russian minelaying becomes less and less uniform and omnipresent, it is necessary to thoroughly recce ahead of any major push lest equipment loss becomes unacceptable," Watling and Reynolds wrote in a reference to forward reconnaissance.
For this reason, it is "very difficult to plan operations beyond the defences immediately in front of Ukrainian positions, meaning that breaches forwards are difficult to exploit," the authors wrote.
Watling and Reynolds argued that Ukraine needs additional equipment, such as drones with the capacity for algorithmic image analysis, to quickly detect mine threats and map out the enemy minefields for accelerated operations.
Despite these challenges to Ukraine's counteroffensive — far from the only problems the military is facing as it carries out complex maneuvers — Kyiv's forces are advancing, and in some areas, particularly in the south, there seems to be increased momentum.
Ukraine's forces are currently pressing the formidable Surovikin Line, and there is speculation that the deeper positions may be less challenging. But that won't be completely clear until Kyiv's troops break the main defensive line, which remains a tough fight for now.