During the counteroffensive, Ukrainian military personnel who received training in NATO countries have stopped relying on US-style tactics and have returned to tactics "they know best", The New York Times reports.
"Ukraine’s army has for now set aside U.S. fighting methods and reverted to tactics it knows best, - NYT writes. - The first several weeks of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive have not been kind to the Ukrainian troops who were trained and armed by the United States and its allies".
It is noted that equipped with advanced American weapons and heralded as the vanguard of a major assault, the troops became bogged down in dense russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships.
"Units got lost. One unit delayed a nighttime attack until dawn, losing its advantage. Another fared so badly that commanders yanked it off the battlefield altogether".
Now the Western-trained Ukrainian brigades are trying to turn things around, U.S. officials and independent analysts say. Ukrainian military commanders have changed tactics, focusing on wearing down the russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire. A troop surge is underway in the country’s south, with a second wave of Western-trained forces launching mostly small-scale attacks to punch through russian lines.
Earlier, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, stated that there are no taboos on using Ukrainian-made weapons for strikes against russia.