Outgunned Kyiv forces fight off Russia with ingenuity

WASHINGTON • The billions of dollars in military aid that the United States has sent Ukraine includes some of the most advanced and lethal weapons systems in the world. But Ukraine has also scored big successes in the war by employing the weapons and equipment in unexpected ways, according to military experts.

From the sinking of the Moskva, Russia's Black Sea flagship, in April to the attack on a Russian air base in Crimea this month, Ukrainian troops have used American and other weapons in ways few expected, the experts and Defence Department officials say.

By mounting missiles onto trucks, 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.

"People are using the MacGyver metaphor," said Mr Frederick Hodges, a former top US Army commander in Europe, in a reference to the 1980s TV show in which the title character uses simple, improvised contraptions to get himself out of sticky situations.

After six months of war, the death toll on both sides is high: US officials estimate that up to 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, while Ukraine's outgunned military has said it is losing 100 to 200 troops a day.

Even so, the engineering ingenuity of the Ukrainians lies in stark contrast to the slow, doctrinal nature of the Russian advance.

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 US official, and moved them within range of the ship, which was about 120km from Odesa.

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

US military officials remain puzzled by why Russia's air defence systems have not been more effective in stopping the drones, which have no self-defence systems and are easily spotted by radar.

A senior Pentagon official said Ukrainian forces had put American-supplied Harm anti-radiation missiles on Soviet-designed MiG-29 fighter jets - something that no air force had ever done.

"It's all home-grown," one US official said. "We did not get any advance notice."

NYTIMES