AFU surprised the West with their skills in war with Russia – experts

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have achieved great success in the war with Russia, using weapons and equipment from partners in unexpected ways.

Such a conclusion is made by U.S. experts and officials who believe Ukrainian fighters managed to surprise Western countries with their skills, Obozrevatel reports, citing an article by The New York Times.

As noted, from the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea in April to the attack on the Russian air base Saki in occupied Crimea in August, the United States and other Western countries have been increasingly struck by the level of effectiveness demonstrated by the Ukrainian army.

“By mounting missiles onto trucks, for instance, Ukrainian forces have moved them more quickly into firing range. By putting rocket systems on speedboats, they have increased their naval warfare ability. And to the astonishment of weapons experts, Ukraine has continued to destroy Russian targets with slow-moving Turkish-made Bayraktar attack drones and inexpensive, plastic aircraft modified to drop grenades and other munitions,” the article says.

For example, in the attack on the Moskva, the Ukrainians developed their own anti-ship missile, called the Neptune, which they based on the design of an old Soviet anti-ship missile, but with substantially improved range and electronics. They appear to have mounted the Neptune missiles onto one or more trucks, according to one senior American official, and moved them within range of the ship, which was around 75 miles from Odesa. 

The striking of the Moskva was, in essence, Neptune’s proof of concept; it was the first time the new Ukrainian weapon was used in an actual war, and it took down Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea.

“With the Moskva, they [used] MacGyvered a very effective anti-ship system that they put on the back of a truck to make it mobile and move it around,” General Hodges, who is now a senior adviser at Human Rights First, said in an interview.

Experts are also surprised by the Ukrainian army’s effectiveness in the use of drones. In particular, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have done so well with Bayraktar UAVs that the company’s executive director, Haluk Bayraktar, praised their ability to “squeeze as much as possible out of these systems”.

At the same time, Russia’s lauded many-layered air defense system proved helpless against such tactics – although the UAVs have no self-defense systems, are detected by any radar and fly at a speed of no more than 130 km/h.

The publication also writes that the strike of Ukrainian troops on an airfield in occupied Crimea deserves special mention: it was carried out without warning to the allies by the Ukrainian special forces and partisans.

The Ukrainian Air Force was also able to combine Soviet MiG-29 fighters with U.S. HARM antiradar missiles. Previously, this was considered completely impossible because the missiles were designed specifically for NATO standard fighters.

“You can’t just hang any kind of rocket off of any kind of plane – there’s a whole lot of avionics and other aspects of flying and high-performance aircraft that are involved here,” General Ben Hodges said. “And they did it.”

As reported before, Hodges previously suggested that the Armed Forces of Ukraine could push back Russian troops from the territories they seized after February 24, and this could happen before the end of 2022. For now, however, Ukrainian soldiers lack the military assistance of the West to launch a decisive counteroffensive.

Author – Anastasiya Glotova, 29/08/2022