Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has repeatedly adapted its tactics to meet the harsh reality of an enemy with far more soldiers and firepower. One key evolution has been embracing “elastic” or “deep” defense, a strategy of trading space for time, inflicting attritional losses on an attacker rather than clinging rigidly to every position. In practice, this means Ukrainian units deliberately fall back to prepared lines, forcing Russian forces to stretch thin, suffer under planned artillery and mines, and strike at their overextended flanks. This concept, well known in military theory, has found new life on the Ukrainian front. By examining the landmark Kharkiv counteroffensive of 2022, the Bakhmut campaign of 2023, and today’s defensive lines in Donetsk, we can see how Ukraine has implemented an elastic defense. Understanding this evolution is crucial for Western policymakers: it highlights why Ukraine needs steady supplies of ammunition and equipment to sustain a war of attrition, not just short-term offensives.
What Is Elastic (Deep) Defense?
At its core, elastic defense or defense-in-depth is a delaying, attritional strategy. Unlike a “fortress defense” that holds the front line at all costs, elastic defense deliberately yields ground to the attacker to bog them down. Defenders set up multiple layers of resistance (trenches, bunkers, minefields, tank traps, etc.) so that an enemy advance slows and incurs heavy losses as it creeps forward. As one military definition explains, a defense-in-depth, buys time by yielding to the enemy slowly, and typically causes an attacker to lose momentum. The element of controlled retreat is key: when the attacker finally pauses, exhausted and vulnerable, reserves counterattack to punish and reset the line.
This idea is not new. It dates back to the Battle of Cannae (216 BC), which became famous in World War I, when trench warfare taught armies to build successive “rings” of defense. The German Army perfected elastic defense in World War I. Russia’s 1943 Kursk line was an example of yielding ground to crush an attacker. Contemporary defense manuals also describe this approach: rather than a single rigid trench line, a defender scatters forces in depth, draws the enemy in, and counterattacks with fresh troops behind the first line.
Key features of elastic defense include:
- Echeloned lines: Multiple defensive belts (forward, main, reserve), not just one front trench.
- Prepared positions: Heavily fortified obstacles (trenches, berms, tank traps like “dragon’s teeth” pillboxes) and minefields on the approach.
- Planned fires: Pre-registered artillery and mortar fires covering the gaps between lines, plus demolitions (mines, IEDs) to inflict maximum attrition.
- Maneuver reserves: Mobile counterattack forces held behind the main line, ready to plug breaches or counter-penetrate against overextended attackers.
- Trading space for time: Intentional withdrawal from undefendable areas, forcing the enemy to advance into kill zones where defenders lie in wait.
In short, elastic defense is built on the idea that you should not let the enemy fix on your front line. Instead, let them move in, force them to thin out to secure gains, then strike where they are weakest. As U.S. military experts noted in October 2023 of Russia’s tactics, Russian forces “move back to a second line of positions… encouraging Ukrainian forces to advance, then strike back when enemy forces become vulnerable.” Ukraine’s doctrinal analysts argue the same principles apply if Ukraine is on defense: dig deep, build layers, and inflict heavy losses on any Russian assault.
Kharkiv Counteroffensive 2022: Breaking the Old Lines
The elasticity debate might seem abstract, but Ukraine’s battlefield experience in 2022–23 shows its practical stakes. In September 2022, Ukraine launched a surprise counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region that shattered Russian lines. The result was a lightning advance, about 50 km deep in some places, which broke the impression of a static trench war. Russian forces, caught off-guard by feints and infiltration, abandoned many positions. Russia’s loosely organized defense crumbled, with Ukrainians exploiting gaps and encircling entire units. The rapid success (and Russian retreat) around Kharkiv was credited to Ukrainian initiative and maneuver warfare, not a foreplanned deep line.
However, this mobility came at a cost. Once Russia dug in south of Kharkiv (in Zaporizhzhia oblast) with the so-called “Surovikin Line” of belts and minefields, Ukraine found it much harder to advance in 2023., Western analysts noted that the Kharkiv breakthrough had raised Ukrainian expectations; planners assumed a quick breakthrough in 2023 would similarly break Russian morale, but the reality was bloodier. By contrast, Kharkiv 2022 showed that an aggressive drive can succeed if the defender has not fully layered their defenses. But it also taught Ukraine that even a well-planned attack could stall without artillery superiority and coordination.
After Kharkiv, Russia rushed to reinforce its lines. By late 2022 and early 2023, it had dug continuous, fortified positions across Zaporizhzhia (east of Kharkiv) and strengthened defenses around Donetsk. These defenses included deep trenches, extensive minefields, anti-tank obstacles, overlapping fields of fire, and classic defense features in depth. For example, the Surovikin Line in Zaporizhzhia was explicitly patterned on deep defense: a series of complex belts with multiple fallback lines, meaning Ukrainians had to overcome one fortified strip only to run into another. In that environment, Ukraine’s 2023 summer counteroffensive struggled, Ukrainian brigades could advance into an initial Russian position, but then got hit by withering counter-bombardment and small counterattacks that slowly halted their momentum.
Bakhmut 2023: The Perils of Holding Ground at All Costs
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the front, Ukraine faced another test of defensive strategy: the battle for Bakhmut. This ruined city in eastern Donetsk became the focus of eight months of ferocious fighting into spring 2023. In Bakhmut, Ukrainian commanders largely tried to hold the line at all costs, pouring manpower into static trench battles against waves of Russian assault. The result was devastating Ukrainian casualties. As one AP account bluntly noted, the fighting “ended in an ultimately futile attempt not to cede ground,” with heavy losses for Ukraine.
By May 2023, Russian forces finally took Bakhmut, but only after grinding it into rubble and draining both sides. Ukrainian defenders (including many elite units) inflicted enormous losses but were steadily pushed back. This episode illustrated the downside of a rigid defense: even a small town became a meat grinder. However, when Ukrainian troops fell back from specific points, they could regroup. Indeed, after the fall of Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces quickly counterattacked nearby positions and regained some lost ground, showing the value of elasticity. However, the official strategy there was primarily static, with little planned retreat.
The lesson of Bakhmut loomed large. Many officers and analysts (Ukrainian and Western) concluded that holding terrain had become too costly without the means to expel the enemy from entrenched zones. As one American analyst put it, Ukraine’s new “elastic band” doctrine purposely contrasts with Bakhmut: now troops “spread out [their] positions… doing it a lot smarter now,” using depth rather than fixing on every trench. In other words, Ukraine learned that a trading ground can save lives and keep units intact when resources are limited.
Russia’s Elastic Defense and Ukraine’s Response
By late 2023, after Ukraine’s high-profile offensives (and Bakhmut) had largely stalled, Russian forces had adopted a defense-in-depth posture, including explicit “elastic defense” tactics. Russian commanders ordered their frontline units to “fall back to the second line of positions… encouraging Ukrainian forces to advance” and then counterattack when the Ukrainians were vulnerable. Russian military bloggers and think tanks openly discussed this change: one prominent pro-Russian war correspondent confirmed that Russia’s tactical withdrawals throughout the Ukrainian counteroffensive were “part of an elastic defense.”
This meant that Russian units would execute controlled retreats into prepared fallback lines whenever Ukrainians made local gains (for example, in Zaporizhzhia or near Robotyne in autumn 2023). Depleted Ukrainian units then found themselves strung out over a broad front, slogging through minefields and facing layers of fire. Only after Ukraine’s spearhead slowed, Russian reserves mounted counterattacks to retake or stabilize the vacated ground. A detailed U.S. analysis of the Zaporizhzhia sector noted that by withdrawing to the “Surovikin Line”, Russia effectively “denied Ukraine the ability to concentrate forces and consolidate and exploit gains.” In other words, Russia’s elastic defense blunted Ukraine’s offensive momentum. It turned the fight into a grueling attrition battle.
Ukraine’s commanders felt the squeeze. By late 2023, they reported that Russian assaults, artillery strikes, and dense minefields were making gains painfully slow. One battalion commander quipped that in the new conditions, “enemy forces are advancing on the corpses of their soldiers with a ten-to-one shell advantage,” implying that anyone trying to hold shallow positions would be annihilated. Faced with this, Ukraine quietly began to adjust. Units were pulled from exposed spots (as ultimately happened at Avdiivka, see below), logistics were spread out, and firing positions were deepened. As a spokesman noted in spring 2024, Ukraine now deliberately “spread out our positions and our logistics… do[ing] it a lot smarter” than before.
Ukrainian military experts also started openly discussing elastic-defense-like concepts. In early 2024, analysts at Ukraine’s think tanks and the media urged a return to layered defense. For example, strategy experts Amy Ashford and Kelly Grieco (Stimson Center) argued in Foreign Affairs that Ukraine should “build a system of defensive lines,” trenches, bunkers, minefields and anti-tank obstacles, effectively mirroring the Russian fortifications of 2023. Ukrainian public discourse picked this up: a National Institute of Strategic Studies analyst wrote in May 2024 that “Ukraine’s defense forces must return to the practice of elastic defense”, with three successive lines (forward, central, reserve) to “gradually exhaust the enemy, trading space for time, and restoring the line through counterattacks from depth.” In short, Ukraine began to talk the language of elastic defense too.
Pulling Back to Hit Harder: Avdiivka and Beyond
One clear turning point came in February 2024 around Avdiivka (near Donetsk). After weeks of furious Russian assaults, Ukraine decided to relieve its own besieged troops in the town. On Feb. 17, Ukrainian Army Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi ordered a withdrawal “to avoid encirclement” and to “move troops to more favorable defense lines.” He made this decision explicitly to “preserve the lives and health of servicemen,” saying it was “the only correct solution” given the 10:1 artillery ratio facing his men. This was an elastic move if there ever was one: Ukrainian forces sacrificed Avdiivka city (by then a cratered ruin) to live to fight another day. Syrskyi emphasized that new positions have been prepared and mighty fortifications continue to be built in depth.
In other words, Ukraine accepted losing some ground to shorten and strengthen its defensive lines. Brigades reported pulling back from outrun trenches, regrouping on better terrain, and digging in with renewed force. As one officer noted, rather than repeat the costly Bakhmut defense, they now preferred a “maneuver defense”: trading space to avoid losses. Around Avdiivka and other sectors, Ukrainian engineers have since laid new minefields and reinforced bunkers on second lines. Commanders publicly stated that “powerful fortifications continue to be prepared, considering all possible scenarios.”
Soldiers corroborated this shift on the ground. In interviews after Avdiivka, troops described moving their guns back, using armored convoys, and even hunting for artillery shells under radar. Supply routes were rerouted, and armored vehicles were used for resupply in high-threat zones. All these tactics, spreading out logistics, delivering ammo by night or drones, are hallmarks of an elastic defense posture, maximizing flexibility.
Shaping Ukraine’s New Doctrine
By mid-2024, Ukraine’s defensive doctrine was blending traditional mobile maneuvers with these in-depth concepts. Officially, Ukraine continues to aim to liberate all occupied territory, but commanders stress the importance of preserving combat power. Deep analysis (including by Ukraine’s Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi) has emphasized that a pure breakthrough strategy is unrealistic without sufficient ammo and air support. Instead, Ukraine has focused on attrition warfare: degrading Russian formations through firepower (shells, missiles, drones), reconnaissance, and local counterattacks, rather than head-on assaults into dense fortifications. New defensive plans reportedly call for tri-layered lines: a well-mined first belt to blunt the Russian onslaught, and a second (and even third) belt deeper back, each layer sapping the enemy. Staffs speak of fighting “from prepared positions” and counterstrokes into soft points of the Russian assault, rather than static street-by-street battles.
This mindset is visible in training and deployment. Hard-pressed sectors (Donetsk frontline, southern Zaporizhzhia) now see lines of trenches manned by reserve units, while assault brigades are held back, ready to counter. Artillery units are placed to cover every approach, and even individual squad tactics (hit-and-fall-back raids, dispersed positions) reflect a defensive bias. As one infantryman said, “Time is in the favor of Ukraine and thus the rationale of an elastic band: you can cede a little territory and gain a little time.”
Western partners are starting to recognize these changes. NATO analysts note that Ukraine’s approach today involves “active defense,” absorbing pressure and striking back, rather than massed offensives. Even some Western media have picked up the term “elastic defense” applied to Ukraine’s tactics (for example, Ukraine’s elastic-band strategy was highlighted by AP and RBC in May 2024. Russian leaders have also publicly acknowledged this shift: Kremlin press has complained that Ukraine is now fighting a war of “strategic defense” and attrition, forcing Russia to expend enormous resources for minimal gains.
Implications for the West: Supporting a War of Attrition
Ukraine’s move toward elastic defense carries a clear message for Western supporters. First, it shows that Ukraine’s goal is to hold, and eventually outlast, the Russian assault, not necessarily to retake every inch right now. In a high-intensity war of attrition, the side that remains standing wins. Western publics often expect dramatic breakthroughs or quick liberation of territory, but elastic defense sometimes means giving up territory to save manpower. Politicians and analysts should understand that a Ukrainian withdrawal (like at Avdiivka) is not a defeat but a calculated trade-off to prolong resistance.
Second, defense-in-depth requires masses of ammunition and durable fortifications. To keep inflicting losses, Ukraine needs endless barrages of artillery shells, mortar rounds, rockets, and missiles. Staunching an enemy assault takes vastly more ammo than spearheading an attack. Ukraine’s tactics of laying mines and digging trenches also imply heavy engineering and defensive munition needs (from tank traps to drones for surveillance). Western aid policies must reflect this: troops on both sides have repeatedly pointed out that Moscow’s artillery stockpiles far outstrip Ukraine’s. Providing Ukraine with enough high-explosive rounds, smart munitions, air defense, and artillery systems is not optional but essential if elastic defense is to succeed.
Third, elastic defense depends on mobility behind the lines. Supply convoys must shift constantly, batteries must “shoot-and-scoot,” and reserve units must be able to move at a moment’s notice. This suggests a need for armored logistics vehicles, more drones for resupply and scouting, and secure communications networks. Western support should include these assets, not just tanks for counteroffensive but also trucks, drones, radar, engineers’ supplies, and plenty of fuel.
Finally, Western leaders should adjust their expectations. Analysts should emphasize Ukraine’s perspective: this is a sustained war of attrition with no quick fixes. The elastic-defense doctrine acknowledges that Ukraine may not liberate Crimea or Donbass by next year, but it can deny Russia victory and prepare conditions for future gain. Every week, Ukraine's buy-in elastic defense (preserving forces, destroying Russian units from prepared positions) strengthens Ukraine’s hand in future negotiations or late-stage offensives. As Stimson analysts said, “as long as Ukraine can defend the territory it holds … it can deprive Russia of total victory.”
In conclusion, Ukraine’s pivot to elastic defense is a rational adaptation. It takes lessons from two years of harsh fighting: don’t waste lives in fruitless defensive brawls (Bakhmut), and don’t expect to smash a well-dug-in enemy without staggering losses. Instead, dig in smartly, draw the enemy in, and strike back when he slows. This shift underscores that firepower and endurance will likely decide the war’s outcome, not rapid maneuvers alone. For Western partners, understanding this means continuing to fund Ukraine’s defense of depth–with ammunition, air defense, and other assets–so Kyiv can outlast and ultimately overcome the invader.
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