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As Ukraine\u2019s counteroffensive has rumbled forward in recent months, it has encountered minefields and forces dug into elaborate trench networks<\/a>. Kyiv\u2019s forces have also run up against a Russian tactic of ceding ground before striking back.<\/p>\n Reports on Monday illustrated the issue: Russian forces said they had staged an assault on Ukrainian troops on the frontline in Zaporizhzhia region, while Ukraine\u2019s forces said it had \u201crepelled the attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than holding a line of trenches at all costs in the face of Ukraine\u2019s assault, security experts say, Russian commanders have employed a longstanding military tactic known as \u201celastic defense.\u201d<\/p>\n The tactic sees Russian forces pull back to a second line of positions, encouraging Ukrainian troops to advance, then strike back when the opposing forces are vulnerable \u2014 either while moving across open ground or as they arrive at recently abandoned Russian positions.<\/p>\n The goal is to prevent Ukrainian troops from actually securing a position and using it as a base for further advances. That\u2019s what Ukraine was able to do with success in the village of Robotyne<\/a> in the south, their biggest breakthrough in recent weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe defender gives ground while inflicting as heavy casualties as they can on the attackers with a view to being able to set the attackers up for a decisive counterattack,\u201d said Ben Barry, a senior fellow for land war studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank.<\/p>\n This tactic is just one of several factors<\/a> that have impeded more rapid progress, according to Ukrainian officials and military experts. They also cite Moscow\u2019s use of dense minefields, networks of trenches and tank barriers, as well as the West\u2019s reluctance to supply advanced fighter jets<\/a> and longer-range weapons sooner in the war.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is Russia\u2019s large stockpiles of artillery<\/a>, which have been deployed throughout the conflict and not least to repel the counteroffensive that began in June.<\/p>\n Elastic defense is not a new approach, Mr. Barry said. The Soviet Union employed it during its defeat of Germany in 1943 at the Battle of Kursk<\/a>, one the biggest on the eastern front during World War II. Russia also appears to have been applying it for some time in Ukraine.<\/p>\n Assessing whether the tactic is being deployed on any given day is difficult without direct access to Russian commanders, experts said. But the Institute for the Study of War<\/a>, a think tank based in Washington, noted signs of it in recent days around Robotyne, which fell to Ukrainian forces<\/a> at the end of August.<\/p>\n