 Ukraine giving up on Western battle tactics. Ukrainian military is abandoning the battle tactics of its Western trainers and returning to a strategy of longer-range standoffs against Russian forces the New York Times reported. However, it remains unclear whether Kiev has enough ammunition to sustain such a plan. Since it began in early June, Ukraine's ongoing counter-offensive has been acknowledged by officials in Washington and Kiev as disappointingly slow at best and a failure at worst. Attacking through Russian minefields without air support, Ukraine's Western-supplied tanks and armored vehicles have been picked off by Russian aviation and artillery, and Moscow estimates that the offensive has cost Kiev at least 30,000 men. At the forefront of the offensive were Ukraine's 9 NATO-trained brigades, one of which, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, reportedly lost 30% of its American-made, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in two weeks. In response to these losses, Ukrainian military commanders have changed tactics focusing on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire. The New York Times wrote, citing U.S. officials and independent analysts. With training times limited, the Ukrainians struggled to put NATO's standard combined arms tactics into practice. The newspaper noted, citing incidents where one Ukrainian unit strayed from a safe path into a minefield and another where an infantry unit failed to follow an artillery bombardment with an assault on Russian lines, giving the Russian defenders adequate time to prepare a counter attack. American military planners began training Ukrainian troops in maneuver warfare in a bid to conserve ammunition. Although NATO military doctrine typically assumes that maneuver warfare will be conducted after Western forces have established air superiority, Ukraine launched its counter-offensive lacking this critical component of the strategy. With the Ukrainian military apparently returning to an artillery-heavy fighting style, the issue of ammunition will likely return to the forefront.