sure, absolutely. one of the big problems is that everything kind of stayed static for about eight months in this war, so the last eight months before the ukrainians moved on their counteroffensive, the russians were able to dig into this area, right in through here. so all of this area, think of it as being heavily mined and entrenched with lots of trenches, plus, you have the dragon s teeth tank traps. so think of this as not only one layer, but as a double or triple layer through this area. extremely hard to get through and extremely difficult, because when you look at the way this frontline actually is set up, you see so many different areas where there are geographic vulnerabilities, but also every time there s something like this, the russians just have to step back a bit and keep the ukrainians at bay. that s why these things are so important at this point in time. it does help to see it like that.
mines , tank traps, et cetera to make it difficult for tanks and armored to get through. does the abrams have particular capabilities are defenses that give it, with highly trained forces, the capability to break them in ways that others have not? well, the abrams has some tremendous maneuverability, as well as some great armament, protection, but what the abrams has, which most u.s. fighting functional components have is reached back into tremendous intelligence, so you can make decisions on the move to make a right or left break. that does not mean you want to use a tank as your first ever
to try to clean a minefield because you re probably going to run into a bunch of mines and immobilized, potentially kill or injure the crew. that s the last thing you want to do. the abrams is not your mind clearing capability. your mind clearing capability is, again, great intelligence that allows you to do prep fires. the use of the conventional munitions that have now been deployed can be used in great numbers. greater artillery, precise artillery fires, to help provide those kinds of avenues in. one challenge for ukrainian forces is just the nature of this war. it s been almost 2 or three different wars, so if you look at the defense of faith, javelin missiles , you have the counteroffensive last fall, which was rapid, a bit of a surprise attack up north. now, you have world war i, like trench warfare, tank traps, et cetera in the east. is one of the challenges that you have, you know, very short period of time to re-kit,
lot of territory. the problem is they let the russians stay in place and dig in. and dig in. there s multiple lines of defense. heavily mined. literally trench warfare in here, other tank traps, et cetera. you just said they don t have the weapons, or at least enough weapons, and they don t have enough trains forced, highly trained forces to break through, particularly when you look at what we know was one of their big goals here, and that was to break through the so-called land bridge between eastern ukraine and crimea here. if they don t have those weapons today, does that indicate to you that they re never going to break through? i think they will break through at some point. or at least they have the chance to break through. they have made some progress around robotyne and they re moving toward tokmak right now. what their goal is, there s a highway that goes along the coast right in through here and actually it intersects up through mel-it pohl pohl. one goes to zaporizhzh