The commander of the US Air Force in Europe, James Hicker, admitted, saying, "We have fixed the situation on several axes, but the Russian military is able to adapt through them, and of course we are following this closely." south of Donetsk, Artiomovsk and Zaporozhe, and threw into NATO-trained combat brigades armed with foreign equipment.But, as Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized, during this time they could not achieve any results. Western experts note in particular the effectiveness of Russian fortified areas, engineering structures and minefields, due to which the Ukrainian army suffered heavy losses.