International- 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.
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, land mines, 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 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, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Insider.
The US and its allies have announced billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine since the war began 17 months ago. But the decision-making and timelines have been anything but smooth. President Joe Biden and the Pentagon, in particular, have expressed concerns over sending Ukraine certain assets — including prized F-16 fighter jets — for fears of Russian escalation.
They've also gone back and forth on whether Ukraine needs certain systems, such as US-made Abrams tanks.
Ukrainians including the presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak have criticized the US's decisions, saying 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?" Barros said. "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?"
The problem, Barros said, "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 added, 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 land mines have slowed and often stalled advances of Western tanks — such as the German-made Leopard 2, a fast, highly maneuverable battle tank that has various firepower assets and some ballistic and mine protection — and US-provided Bradley fighting vehicles.
While these assets carefully navigate anti-tank mines such as the Soviet TM-62, they're left vulnerable to Russia's arsenal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces have waves of artillery, exploding drones, and Ka-52 attack helicopters armed with anti-tank guided missiles that can rip through heavy armor.
In some cases, Ukrainian troops have had to abandon tanks and infantry-fighting vehicles that became surrounded by deadly minefields or got 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 handle only 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.
Ukraine's multifaceted problems raise a question: What does this mean for the counteroffensive's success?
It's too early to tell, Barros said. But the problem it's facing right now can't be shrugged away, and Ukrainians will need to rely on scrappy instincts, as they do when strapping explosives to commercially available drones.
"This is going to be a long, protracted fight," Barros said. "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."