Kyiv has moved to developing a defense strategy that mimics the tactics Russia used in Zaporizhia to stop last year's counteroffensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, El Mundo writes.
The Spanish publication spoke with Ukrainian military personnel , who are already building defensive fortifications. According to them, the construction of a second line of defense is underway.
“This is not a continuous line like the Russian one. We are establishing defensive points on the heights,” one of the Ukrainian military told the publication.
At the same time, one of the sappers complained that their capabilities in terms of mining were seriously inferior to the Russians.
“We put one (mine) every 60 meters. They put up to 10 per square meter,” he said.
As El Mundo emphasizes, although Zelensky and his advisers refuse to publicly admit that any hypothetical offensive plan by the Ukrainian army depends on another large batch of aid from Kyiv's allies, it is clear that both in the north and in the southeast, the troops received a single order: "hold the line."
“We cannot continue the offensive. The Russian army is no longer the same as it was in 2022,” admitted former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Russia has an advantage not only in terms of the number of military personnel, but also in aviation, artillery, electronic warfare equipment, and the number of drones. The combination of Orlan-10 reconnaissance drones and Lancet attack drones has become a serious challenge for Kyiv . Moreover, the production capacity of drones in Russia exceeds 100 thousand per month, while in Ukraine, according to experts, it does not even reach half of this figure.
At the same time, Western aid to Ukraine has sharply decreased. The Kiel Institute for World Economics (Germany) estimated that between August and October last year, this reduction reached 90% compared to 2022.
