US media: "Ukrainian military changes tactics and sends a clear signal" US | Ukraine | Ukrainian military
On August 2nd, the website of The New York Times published an article titled "The Ukrainian military trained in the West did not perform well in combat" by Eric Schmidt and Helene Cooper. The article excerpt is as follows:
The long-awaited first few weeks of Ukraine's counterattack did not go smoothly for the Ukrainian army, which had been trained and armed by the United States and its allies.
These troops, equipped with advanced American weapons and hailed as pioneers of large-scale attacks, have fallen into Russia's densely populated minefields and are constantly being hit by artillery and armed helicopters. Some troops suffered losses.
US officials and independent analysts say that Ukrainian brigades trained in the West are now trying to turn the tide of the war. The Ukrainian military commander has changed tactics and focused on using artillery and long-range missiles to deplete the Russian army, rather than risking artillery fire to break into minefields.
The early results of Ukraine's counterattack were mixed. Although some villages have been recaptured, they have not yet achieved the same victory as last autumn. Faced with the indiscriminate bombardment of Russian artillery, the complex training received in Western exercises did not provide any comfort to the Ukrainians.
Ukraine's decision to change tactics is a clear signal that NATO's desire for significant progress in Ukrainian forces, which have received new weapons, training, and supplemented artillery ammunition, has not been realized, at least not yet.
This has raised doubts about the quality of training received by the Ukrainian military from the West, as well as whether billions of dollars in weapons can successfully transform the Ukrainian military into NATO standard combat forces.
Michael Kofman, a senior researcher at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace Studies in the United States, recently inspected the frontline situation in Ukraine. He said, "The counterattack itself has not failed. The counterattack will drag on for several months and enter autumn. It can be said that the problem is that people think that with a few months of training, these Ukrainian troops can fight more like the US military, rather than helping the Ukrainians fight more in the best way they know."
US officials are concerned that Ukraine's reintroduction of old tactics carries risks and will quickly deplete valuable military supplies, which could fall into Russia's trap and put Ukraine at a disadvantage in the war of attrition.
Officials in the Biden administration had hoped that Ukraine's nine Western trained brigades could demonstrate that the US combat style was superior to Russia's combat style. Russians have a strict centralized command structure, while Americans teach Ukrainians to authorize senior military personnel to make quick decisions on the battlefield, as well as deploy infantry, armored, and artillery to launch coordinated attacks in a multi service joint combat tactic.
Western officials believe that joint combat tactics with multiple branches are more effective than strategies aimed at dragging down the Russian military through attrition warfare. The cost of engaging in a war of attrition against Russia is high and may deplete Ukraine's ammunition reserves.
