Ukraine Update…406 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…Russian vs Western Ukraine fighting

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects around the globe.

• A Russian fighter jet “released a missile” during an interaction with the British spy plane in international airspace over the Black Sea on Sept. 29, an incident that British Defense Minister Ben Wallace disclosed to the House of Commons in the fall. A Pentagon document — one of dozens whose leak has triggered a Justice Department investigation — frames the interaction in terms that more closely resemble an intended strike, referring to it as a “near-shoot down,” The Washington Post reports.
• Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak asserted that the leaked documents, which appeared to detail Ukraine’s combat capabilities and Western support, contained largely “fictitious information” and had “nothing to do with Ukraine’s real plans.” Podolyak added in a Telegrampost: “As for the real counteroffensive plans, the Russian troops will certainly be the first to get acquainted with them.”
• The artillery shortage for Ukrainian forces described in the leaked documents dated a month ago has persisted, said a Ukrainian officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the leak with the press. “Ukraine’s ammunition stockpiles are very low,” he said, “I haven’t seen any change in the last month.” But he said he doesn’t trust the majority of what he has read from the documents and doesn’t believe the leak will affect the country’s plans for a counteroffensive. Another officer said when asked about the leak: “this impacts the Kyiv establishment, but definitely won’t have any impact on the frontline.”
• Ukraine has laid more than 6,000 antitank mines along its border with Belarus and Russia to fortify its defenses, Lt. Gen. Serhiy Naev said in a statement posted on Telegram by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. The defensive lines were focused on “likely routes of the enemy’s advance deep into our territory, including roads, forest strips, bridges, power lines, etc.”
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Russia on Sunday night for three deaths he said were caused by Russian S-300 missiles in Zaporizhzhia.“They hit a house, an apartment building. Three people were inside. A man, a woman and a child — a girl, her name was Iryna, she would have turned 11 this year. She died. The man died too,” Zelesnky said in his evening address Sunday. “The woman is in critical condition.”

• Russian forces continue to attack civilian and infrastructure targets in Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to local officials. Over the past day, Russia shelled the region 71 times — hitting Kherson city 23 times, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said Sunday on Telegram. No casualties were reported.

• Pope Francis called for the “light of Easter” to be shed upon the Russian people, in his Easter Sunday message. “Help the beloved Ukrainian people on their journey towards peace,” he also said, according to the Catholic News Agency. After initially hesitating to directly criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin, Francis has recently become more vocal in his critique of Russia’s invasion and has repeatedly described the Ukrainian people as “martyred.”…..

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The troops operating style story….(Russian vs Western technique )

Soon after Ukraine started fighting back against Russia’s invading troops, senior U.S. officials began attributing some of Ukraine’s success to the assistance Americans had provided them before the war’s start.

Training with troops from the United States transformed Ukraine’s Soviet-style military to a more NATO-style force, then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in April 2022. “They have better command and control,” he said, “that didn’t happen by accident.” U.S. and allied training made Ukraine a “more battlefield-effective” force, a senior Defense Department official added.

But experts and one U.S. officer involved in the process say that while U.S. training did help, it isn’t possible to draw a straight line between U.S. support and Ukraine success. Experts in particular pointed to a Ukrainian officer-corps still rife with Soviet-style thinking….

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Still, Western military reforms were at least somewhat helpful, particularly as they came alongside significant social change in Ukraine, Will Reno, a professor at Northwestern University, told Defense One in an interview. Ukraine began seeking greater integration with Europe and the United States after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and sponsored a proxy war in eastern Ukraine.

However, it’s difficult to link specific foreign efforts prior to 2022 to Ukraine’s military success against Russia, said Jahara Matisek, an associate professor in the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

U.S. assistance at the time “was very small and pinprick, precisely because the U.S. and NATO were trying so hard to not provoke Russia,” he said.

Matisek recounted seeing little NATO-style training evident during a visit to Ukraine’s Odesa military academy in 2021. There was “no concept” of mission command doctrine, the NATO-style training that emphasizes initiative among lower-ranked officers, he said.

Younger officers he met were different. They had combat experience from fighting in eastern Ukraine, and bought into the U.S. military’s way of waging war.

“It was pretty clear to me that there was a divide” between the young Ukrainian military personnel and the colonels who were 40 years or older, he said….

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