AFU Surprise Experts With Irregular Use Of Western Weapons

No one expected it from Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukraine has reached great success in the war, using the weapons and equipment, experts say. One has not expected it from the AFU. The New York Times article discusses it.

Experts and U.S. Defense Department officials say Ukrainian troops have used American and other weapons in ways few expected, starting with the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva in the Black Sea in April and ending with an attack on a Russian airbase in Crimea this month.

For example, Ukrainian forces move missiles faster by loading them onto trucks. The AFU combat capabilities at sea have expanded by installing missile systems on speedboats.

A high-ranking Pentagon official says Ukrainian forces have installed American-supplied HARM missiles on Soviet MiG-29 fighters. No one has ever done it before. One believes these missiles are incompatible with MiG-29s and other fighters in Ukrainian service.

"One can't just attach any missile to any aircraft; there's a lot of avionics and other aspects of high-performance aircraft involved. And they did," stressed Frederick B. Hodges, former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army in Europe.

Ukraine continues to destroy Russian targets with Turkish-made Bayraktar slow-moving strike drones and inexpensive plastic drones modified to drop grenades and other ammunition.

U.S. military officials are baffled why Russian multi-level air defence systems have not proven more effective against drones that have no self-defence systems and can be easily detected by radar and fly at only about 128 kilometres per hour.

General Hodges notes the Ukrainian military's ability to destroy Russians in unusual ways makes them comparable to McGuyver, a 1980s TV show character who used simple improvised devices to get out of difficult situations.

Experts note the Ukrainians' engineering ingenuity stands in stark contrast to the slow, doctrinaire nature of the Russian offensive.

Numerous attacks on Russian military facilities in Crimea also prove the Ukrainians' abilities, journalists note. For example, the strike on the Saki airfield on Aug. 9. U.S. officials say Ukraine carried out this strike without prior coordination with the U.S. and other Western allies.

Also, Ukrainian special forces and partisans used improvised weapons, explosives and tactics in the strikes.

"The action on the Crimean Peninsula likely marks a new phase in the war as the Ukrainians go on the offensive with an irregular military campaign aimed at pushing Russia out of an area it is confident is secure," said Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and CIA officer.