When you think about it, the defenses in Donbass were built up by NATO, as they could openly operate in Ukraine prior to Feb, 2022. I suspect that defenses were not built up elsewhere, simply because the Neocons never expected open warfare between Russia and Ukraine...so the Kiev Regime was stuck trying to build up those defenses AFTER the operation had begun, which was difficult, both because they would be under fire while trying to build up the defenses, and because they simply didn’t know how to construct them (training in Poland only gets you so far), so it was easier to simply ‘make a dime’ selling the materials on the open market...and, of course, the Neocons protected just that.
Oh yeah. It’s likely most of the material sent over has walked, leaving the poor Ukranian kids ill equipped. What a cluster this is.
Apparently there is no equivalent to General Armageddon ( Surovikin) in the Uke military….the strategist that pulled Russian troops out of Kherson to much scorn by the West, but then built a series of “ Surovikin defense lines” that chewed up the vaunted but failed great Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023.
General Armageddon is back, recently, after a period of exile to Africa after the Wagner coup fiasco….and after Putin’s inauguration.