The changing Russian tactics along with increased troop numbers and improved weaponry could make it challenging for Ukraine to score any kind of quick decisive victory, threatening to turn it into a long battle of attrition
Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv’s forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills.
Most attention last week focused on catastrophic flooding in southern Ukraine caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam that both sides blame on each other. Sir Richard Barrons, a retired general who led the U.K. Joint Forces Command, said the Russian military has built “textbook” defensive lines and adjusted its tactics following its hasty retreat from wide swaths of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions last fall under the brunt of a swift Ukrainian campaign.
Russia has fielded more troops to protect the long front line, even though many of them could be poorly trained, he said. A major factor still limiting Russia’s capability has been its decision to keep its air force from forging deep into Ukraine after it suffered heavy losses in the war’s initial stages. Its attempts to knock out Ukraine’s air defenses have failed. Thanks to supplies of Western weaponry, Ukraine now poses an even more formidable challenge to Russian aircraft.
“It doesn’t matter what tanks they have; they have thousands of them,” Zhdanov told AP, noting Russia put many of them to use as stationary weapons in their defensive lines, including in the Zaporizhzhia region where they proved effective. “The Soviet Union produced those bombs in uncountable numbers,” Zhdanov said, adding that the Russians drop up to 50 a day for a “major psychological effect.”
The Royal United Service Institute, a London-based think-tank that focuses on defense and security issues, listed these gliding bombs along with other improvements in Russian weapons and tactics.
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