“Don’t believe the hype about them just throwing troops into the meat grinder to be slaughtered,” he added. “They do that too, of course — maximizing even more the impact of their superior numbers — but they also learn and refine.”

The officers said the shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles supplied by the U.K. and U.S. in the first weeks of the invasion came in time, helping them save Kyiv — and so, too, did the HIMARS, the light multiple-launch rocket systems, which were used to great effect, enabling them to push Russia out of Kherson in November 2022. 

“But often, we just don’t get the weapons systems at the time we need them — they come when they’re no longer relevant,” another senior officer said,…