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By The Vanguard

LOS ANGELES, CA After a fugitive pushed owner Carlos Pena from his shop and barricaded himself inside last year, a SWAT team from the City of Los Angeles fired more than 30 rounds of tear gas canisters inside, leaving Penas shop in ruin, with inventory unusablebut Carlos was left with the bill and without a livelihood, according to a story in Yahoo News and Reason.Com.

An immigrant from El Salvador, Pena said he didnt fault the city for attempting to subdue an allegedly dangerous person. But he objected to what came next, said the news accounts.

The government refused his requests for compensation, strapping him with expenses that exceed $60,000 and a situation that has cost him tens of thousands of dollars in revenue, as he has been resigned to working at a much-reduced capacity out of his garage, according to a lawsuit he filed this month in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Apprehending a dangerous fugitive is in the public interest, the suit notes. The cost of apprehending such fugitives should be borne by the public, and not by an unlucky and entirely innocent property owner.

Yahoo News said, Pena is not the first such property owner to see his life destroyed and be left picking up the pieces. Insurance policies often have disclaimers that they do not cover damage caused by the government. But governments sometimes refuse to pay for such repairs, buttressed by jurisprudence from various federal courts which have ruled that actions taken under police powers are not subject to the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The Lech family in Greenwood Village, Colorado, after cops destroyed their residence while in pursuit of a suspected shoplifter, unrelated to the family, who forced himself inside their house, found their $580,000 home was rendered unlivable and had to be demolished the government gave them a cool $5,000, said Yahoo.

But, added Yahoo News, Leo Lechs claim made no headway in federal court, with the court ruling, The defendants law-enforcement actions fell within the scope of the police poweractions taken pursuant to the police power do not constitute takings.

Yahoo News and Reason.com said, Lech was fortunate enough to get $345,000 from his insurance, which, between the loss of the home, the cost of rebuilding, and the governments refusal to contribute significantly, left him $390,000 in the hole. In June 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

In a similar position was Vicki Baker, whose home in McKinney, Texas, was ravaged in 2020 after a SWAT team drove a BearCat armored vehicle through her front door, used explosives on the entrance to the garage, smashed the windows, and filled the home with tear gas to coax out a kidnapper whod entered the home, said news accounts.

As in Penas case, Baker never disputed that the police had a vested interest in trying to keep the community safe. But she struggled to understand why they left her holding the bag financially as she had to confront a dilapidated home, a slew of ruined personal belongings, and a dog that went deaf and blind in the mayhem, Yahoo News writes.

Ive lost everything, Baker, who is in her late 70s, told Reason.com. Ive lost my chance to sell my house. Ive lost my chance to retire without fear of how Im going tomake my regular bills.

In November 2021, against the citys protestations, a federal judge allowed her case to proceed. And in June of last year, a jury finally awarded her $59,656.59, although the courts rulings did not create a precedent in favor of future victims, said Reason.com.

Attorney Jeffrey Redfern, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, the public interest law firm representing Pena in his suit, said the police-power shield invoked by some courts is a historical misunderstanding.

Judges, he said, have recently held that so long as the overall action taken by the government was justifiabletrying to capture a fugitive, for examplethen the victim is not entitled to compensation under the Fifth Amendment.

Takings are not supposed to be at all about whether or not the government was acting wrongfully, he said to reporters. It can be acting for the absolute best reasons in the world. Its just about who should bear these public burdens. Is it some unlucky individual, or is it society as a whole?

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Los Angeles Shop Owner, Others National Through No Fault of ... - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

Credit: Wirestock

by Lynn Woods

(The following is excerpted from a longer piece.)

California is seeking to reform its prison system by providing inmates with opportunities to participate in a variety of self-help groups, college programs, vocational training, and designated programming facilities. This reform comes at a time when the state is being ordered by the federal court to reduce overcrowding due to inadequate medical and mental health care. Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., and prisoner support groups put together an initiative called the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, approved by California voters on November 8, 2016. This reform came at a time when inmates confined to security housing units (SHU) bonded together in a statewide hunger strike to revise the prison system and its politics to benefit all inmates. A bond between ex-gang members and leaders made national headlines with their hunger strike and agreement to end hostilities between them. Their efforts to change the system were mostly successful, and they successfully challenged and changed the harsh practice of long-term solitary confinement in SHU.

Between 1970 and 1974, 71 prisoners and 11 correctional staff were murdered in California prisons. These homicides began a war within the system between inmates and staff, the results of which made it hard for anyone to do their time safely. Inmates were set up by correctional officers through racial conflict. This sparked a wave of violence, and caused the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to create the SHU to house violent inmates. Even in the SHU, correctional staff orchestrated gladiator fights that garnered national attention in the 1990s. Correctional staff killed five prisoners in the Corcoran SHU, and injured another 40 between 1989 and 1994. This behavior was never intended to rehabilitate, but to create an uncomfortable perception (of criminals as irredeemable) for the public, and a hostile environment within the prisons.

On August 12, 2015, a riot broke out at California State Prison, Sacramento. In this event, 71-year-old Hugo Yogi Pinell was killed. Released from the SHU after 41 years, the CDCR never forgot that Pinell was one of six prisoners accused of slitting the throats of correctional officers that stemmed from the violence of 1970-1974. Pinell was killed by two white inmates in a planned attacked orchestrated by prison officials.

The CDCR has a huge issue with overcrowding that has caused violence and inadequate medical care. According to CDCR notice of change to regulations number 17-05, published July 14, 2017, from 1978 to 2006, the prison population in California grew from 22,000 to 176,000, an increase that forced prisons to house inmates at double their designed bed capacity. On May 23, 2011, the United States Supreme Court ruled that California must comply with an order handed down by a federal Three-Judge Court to reduce its prison population to 137.5 percent of designed bed capacity.

Specifically, the Three-Judge Court ordered the department to implement additional population reduction measures. These measures were intended to reduce the violence within the prison system, rehabilitate the portion of the inmate population that wanted rehabilitating, and to ensure better medical health care.

Even though the new reforms were implemented, inmates are still faced with the damage that was done and the impact of the past. Correctional officers still, in many cases, utilize aggressive tactics and there is still a pervading sense of the old us vs. them mentality. True rehabilitation remains the responsibility of the individual prisoner, and it is a testament to an individuals determination at self-improvement that lies at the core of personal reform. Most inmates, like myself, will be released from prison after serving their sentence. Those who have chosen to pursue education, acquire degrees, participate in self-help groups, are better prepared to reenter society and become active, productive members of their communities. Research shows that rehabilitation programs providing effective and targeted rehab interventions are proven to reduce recidivism and therefore enhance public safety. These types of reform push the inmate in the direction of pro-social change, and benefits the individual, their family, community, and all of humanity.

Republished from Perspectives from the Cell Block: An Anthology of Prisoner Writings edited by Joan Parkin in collaboration with incarcerated people from Mule Creek State Prison.

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VANGUARD INCARCERATED PRESS: The Fight for Prison Reform - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, first of all, hello and thank you, thank you, thank you all for being here. And more important, thank you for what youre doing every day to quite literally feed the world.

We and everyone at this table knows this better than anyone we have a couple of major challenges on our hands that we are determined to make a difference on. One is we have growing food insecurity around the world. We have a combination of climate change, COVID in recent years, and now conflict driving that food insecurity, which in turn is driving more conflict, forced migration, stunting growth both physical and economic. And at the same time, the flip side of the coin is that increasingly we see food being used as a weapon of war. And so for us it was important to use the presidency that we have this month of the Security Council to try to put more light on that, but not just put a light on it, actually offer some practical solutions.

In the near term, obviously, the one of the biggest challenges we have with weaponizing food is whats happening in Ukraine, with what Russias doing, and I spoke about that at length today. Ill simply say that the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which never should have been necessary in the first place it was only necessary because Russia invaded Ukraine, then blockaded its ports but nonetheless, when that initiative was in effect, some 30 million tons of grain got out of Ukraine and into world markets. Two-thirds of the wheat was going to the developing world, the equivalent of 18 billion loaves of bread.

And since Russia has decided to tear up that agreement, weve seen prices go up for everyone, and at the same time Russia has chosen not only to have torn up the agreement but to actually attack grain silos, production facilities, and threaten ports and sea lanes. So theres a clear demand signal from around the world that this get reversed and that Russia restore the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

But what I also and mostly wanted to focus on with all of you is this: We also know that even as we have urgent challenges in so many parts of the world that we have to respond to and we are we also have the medium- and long-term challenge. If the worlds population is going to hit 10 billion people by 2050 and demand for food is going to go up by 50 percent but yields are actually going down, we have a fundamental problem, a fundamental challenge. We have been working to try to address that.

One of the things that Im most excited about and Cary Fowler, one of the leading experts in the world, known to all of you, happily has been with us now at the State Department for the last couple of years we have an initiative that I hope can make a real difference that really focuses on crops and soil. And there, I think as you all know better than anyone, we have the capacity to produce seeds that are both more resilient to all of the different aspects of climate change whether its extreme heat, whether its droughts, whether its floods and that could also be more nutritious and respond to what people like to cultivate on a traditional basis.

And at the same time, we now have a greater ability than ever before to map the quality of soil around the world, figure out where its productive and where its not and then to do something about it. If you put these things together, if you really put together the seeds and the soil, you can have a dramatic impact, we think, on long-term productive capacity and sustainability that would really address the needs of people around the world.

I say all that speaking to folks who are really among the vanguard of dealing with innovation, who are on the frontlines of food every single day, and were really here to listen and learn from them. So Im grateful to each and every one of you for being here, and not only to look at what the opportunities may be for building greater food security, building greater resilience, but also how we can partner more effectively with the private sector and what the U.S. Government and other governments can do to have a greater impact going forward.

Id just conclude by saying about 80 percent of what we consume is plant-based. So if we can get that right, we can make a huge, huge difference, and part of the reason that were engaged in this and Im engaged in this in this job, which may seem a little unusual to some, is of course because its profoundly a question of doing right for humanity. As President Biden has said, if parents cant put food on the table for their kids, nothing else really matters. But its also a matter of national security and economic security, because we know the knock-on effects of profound food insecurity.

So all of that said, thank you, each and every one of you, for being here, and Im really eager to hear from you. Thanks.

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Roundtable on Food Security and ... - Department of State

Does your investment portfolios level of volatility keep you awake at night? If so, you may want to consider an

Does your investment portfolios level of volatility keep you awake at night? If so, you may want to consider an allocation to bonds.

Aside from a dismal year in 2022 as interest rates rose sharply, bonds have historically played an important role in portfolio management.

Due to their lower correlation with stocks and steady cash flows, bonds can provide ballast for investors, helping to reduce volatility and minimize drawdowns. For investors, bonds smooth out the long-term ups and downs of a portfolio and help target a steadier sequence of returns.

That being said, investing in bonds can be difficult, given that they trade over the counter. Pricing bonds requires a good deal of math, and trading individual issues tends to be less intuitive and convenient compared to trading stocks on an exchange.

[Sign up for stock news with our Invested newsletter.]

A much more viable alternative for retail investors is a bond fund, which includes bond mutual funds and bond exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. These funds hold an underlying basket of bonds selected according to different rules, which provides diversified exposure in a single investment.

While most asset managers will have a bond lineup, few rival the cost-effectiveness that Vanguard provides. The firm made fixed-income history in 1986 when it unveiled the industrys first bond index fund, which dramatically lowered costs for investors compared to existing actively managed bond funds.

As with most things Vanguard, they are widely known as the low-cost fund provider when compared to their peers, says Wes Moss, managing partner and chief investment strategist at Capital Investment Advisors. When you keep your investment fees lower, you can improve total returns.

Currently, Vanguards bond lineup spans 110 different fixed-income products, 89 of which are mutual funds with the remaining 21 consisting of ETFs. This, coupled with expense ratios as low as 0.03%, means few asset managers can rival Vanguards commitment to low fees and variety.

Vanguards bond fund lineup covers a wide range of bond types, including government bonds, corporate bonds, municipal bonds and international bonds, Moss says. This breadth of options allows investors to create a well-diversified bond portfolio tailored to their specific investment goals and risk tolerance.

Heres a look at seven of the best Vanguard bond mutual funds and ETFs to buy in 2023:

Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND)

Investors who are not interested in a specific type, maturity or credit quality of bond can opt to simply invest in all of them via BND. This ETF tracks the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Float Adjusted Index, which invests in a wide swath of bonds ranging from U.S. Treasurys to investment-grade corporate bonds of various maturities. Its portfolio of over 10,000 individual bonds comes with an expense ratio of just 0.03%.

Currently, BND offers an average yield to maturity, or YTM, of 4.8%, which is the theoretical return an investor can expect should all of its underlying bonds be held until maturity. Against this is an average duration a measure of interest rate sensitivity of 6.5 years. Should rates rise by 100 basis points, BND is expected to lose 6.5% in value, all else being equal. The opposite will occur if rates are cut.

Vanguard Total International Bond ETF (BNDX)

BNDX offers diversification benefits by including investment-grade bonds issued by governments and corporations outside the United States, and thus provides exposure to international bonds denominated in various currencies, says Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors. This ETF is essentially the international variant of BND.

By diversifying a bond allocation internationally, investors can benefit from different interest rate regimes in foreign countries, and hedge the remote-but-potentially-devastating risk of the U.S. bond market collapsing. In addition, BNDX is currency-hedged to mitigate foreign exchange rate fluctuations. The ETF pays a YTM of 5.3%, has an average duration of 7.5 years and charges a 0.07% expense ratio.

Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund Investor Shares (VWEHX)

BND includes investment-grade corporate bonds that are rated BBB or higher by two or more of the major credit rating agencies. While less at risk of default, they dont offer the highest yields. Investors seeking the highest possible income might consider a high-yield bond fund like VWEHX, which holds non-investment grade bonds and currently pays a YTM of 7.1%

This fund aims to provide potentially higher income through exposure to bonds with higher credit risk by investing in lower-rated, high-yield corporate bonds, Schulman says.

Some 48.3% of VWEHXs bonds are rated BB, and 34.3% are rated B. The fund charges a 0.23% expense ratio.

Vanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF (VTC)

Investors who want to strike a better balance between high credit quality and high yields can find middle ground between Treasurys and high-yield bonds with investment-grade corporate bonds. A highly diversified ETF offering exposure to a wide swath of the U.S. investment-grade market is VTC, which currently holds over 7,200 individual issues by tracking the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index.

VTC uses a balanced ETF of ETFs structure by allocating 39% to the Vanguard Short-Term Corporate Bond ETF (VCSH), 27.4% to the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF (VCIT) and 33.6% to the Vanguard Long-Term Corporate Bond ETF (VCLT). The end result is a YTM of 5.5% against an average duration of 7.2 years. VTC charges a 0.04% expense ratio.

Vanguard Long-Term Treasury Index Fund Admiral Shares (VLGSX)

Investors need to understand the two main types of risk inherent in fixed income investing before selecting a bond fund, says Chris Tidmore, senior manager at Vanguards Investment Advisory Research Center. Bond funds with long-term maturities are more sensitive to changes in interest rates, while a lower credit quality in the underlying bonds also impacts the riskiness of a particular fund.

By selecting the right bond fund, investors can tailor their exposure to each of these metrics. For investors looking to bet on falling interest rates now that the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to 22-year highs, the bond fund to consider is VLGSX. This fund holds Treasurys with an average duration of 16 years, making it likely to benefit from future cuts in rates. It charges a 0.07% expense ratio.

Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF (VTEB)

Another question to ask when considering bond funds for your portfolio is whether youre investing outside of an individual retirement account or other tax-advantaged retirement account, Tidmore says. If youre in a high tax bracket and investing outside of your retirement account, a tax-exempt bond fund could help reduce tax exposure. For this, Vanguard offers VTEB at a 0.05% expense ratio.

VTEB tracks the Standard & Poors National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index, which as its name suggests primarily holds municipal bonds exempt from both federal income taxes and the federal alternative minimum tax. The underlying municipal bonds in this ETF sport a high credit rating, with the majority sitting at AA. VTEB currently pays a 3.5% YTM against an average duration of 5.8 years.

Vanguard Ultra-Short Bond ETF (VUSB)

All of the previous Vanguard bond funds are passively managed, meaning that theyre strictly benchmarked to the composition and returns of an underlying index. Vanguard also offers a range of actively managed bond funds, which aim to outperform their benchmark and are known for their relatively low fees compared to their peers, Moss says.

One example is VUSB, which actively manages a portfolio of short-term investment-grade corporate bonds. As an actively managed ETF, VUSB does not replicate an index. Rather, its managers pick bonds according to their own strategy, with the goal of minimizing volatility and targeting higher yields. VUSB currently pays a YTM of 5.8%, has an average duration of 0.9 years and charges a 0.10% expense ratio.

[READ: 5 Great Fixed-Income Funds to Buy for 2023]

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7 Best Vanguard Bond Funds to Buy originally appeared on usnews.com

Update 08/02/23: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.

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7 Best Vanguard Bond Funds to Buy - WTOP

The nuclear industry underpins hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK, both directly and through the extended supply chain, and is growing rapidly. Nuclear has a wide variety of roles ranging from technical scientific and engineering roles through to logistics, project management, commercial and finance with a range of apprentice and graduate opportunities.

The UKs nuclear capability plays a significant role in the security, prosperity and resilience of our nation. Putting our nuclear workforce at the heart of this upskilling work will help deliver on the Prime Ministers priority to grow the economy and support UK jobs.

Chaired by Sir Simon Bollom former Chief Executive Officer of Defence Equipment and Support - the Taskforce will address how the UK continues to build nuclear skills across its defence and civil workforce.

The UKs Nuclear sectors are in positive periods of growth and the workforce will expand further given the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership and the governments drive around energy security.

By developing nuclear skills, we are not just investing in the UK economy but our national security.

The creation of this new Taskforce will challenge the whole of the UKs nuclear sector to be ambitious in addressing the nuclear skills gap, and we are delighted to appoint Sir Simon Bollom to drive this work forward.

Building on the work already undertaken with industry and across government by the Ministry of Defence and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Taskforce will develop a skills strategy to support the significant growth expected across a range of roles in the defence and civil nuclear sectors in the coming years.

Against a backdrop of increasing international competition for such roles, the Taskforce will set up the UKs nuclear sector for future success, supporting industry to build a long-term and sustainable pipeline of skills to meet our nuclear ambition.

The UKs nuclear revival, with the launch of Great British Nuclear, will put us centre-stage in the global race to unleash a new generation of nuclear technology.

The Nuclear Skills Taskforce will support this expansion by securing the skills and workforce we need to deliver this, opening up exciting opportunities and careers to help bolster our energy security.

The launch of Great British Nuclear will boost energy security and create job opportunities across the UK. Recently launched, it forms part of a revival of nuclear power to place the UK at the forefront of a global race to develop cutting-edge nuclear technologies and deliver cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy.

Great British Nuclear will deliver the governments long-term nuclear programme and support the governments ambition to deliver up to 24GW of nuclear power in the UK by 2050. Part of this will be delivered through the huge projects taking place at the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C nuclear power plants.

Having served as an engineer officer in the RAF for 35 years, and most recently as the Chief Executive Officer of the Defence Equipment and Support, Taskforce Chair Sir Simon Bollom has a strong network and credibility with industry given his extensive experience in Defence. He is also currently on the Board of the Submarine Delivery Agency.

I am absolutely delighted to have secured this extremely important role. The Nuclear Sector is vital to our nation, and I am proud to have been given the opportunity to lead such an important Taskforce to ensure that we have the people, and skills we need to deliver our Programmes.

The UKs nuclear industry is crucial for Britains military capabilities. Our Vanguard and Astute submarines, and from the early 2030s the new Dreadnought Class, use nuclear technology, keeping the nation safe every minute of every day.

The creation of the UKs next generation nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS partnership will see the creation of thousands of UK jobs, and all the nuclear reactors for the UK and Australian SSN-AUKUS submarines will be made in Derby.

Sir Simon Bollom will be joined on the Taskforce by representatives from the Ministry of Defence, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Department for Education, academia and professional bodies as well as industry partners.

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New Taskforce to build UK nuclear skills - GOV.UK

The first several weeks of Ukraines long-awaited counteroffensive have not been kind to the Ukrainian troops who were trained and armed by the United States and its allies.

Equipped with advanced American weapons and heralded as the vanguard of a major assault, the troops became bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships. Units got lost. One unit delayed a nighttime attack until dawn, losing its advantage. Another fared so badly that commanders yanked it off the battlefield altogether.

Now the Western-trained Ukrainian brigades are trying to turn things around, U.S. officials and independent analysts say. 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. A troop surge is underway in the countrys south, with a second wave of Western-trained forces launching mostly small-scale attacks to punch through Russian lines.

But early results have been mixed. While Ukrainian troops have retaken a few villages, they have yet to make the kinds of sweeping gains that characterized their successes in the strategically important cities of Kherson and Kharkiv last fall. The complicated training in Western maneuvers has given the Ukrainians scant solace in the face of barrage after barrage of Russian artillery.

Ukraines decision to change tactics is a clear signal that NATOs hopes for large advances made by Ukrainian formations armed with new weapons, new training and an injection of artillery ammunition have failed to materialize, at least for now.

It raises questions about the quality of the training the Ukrainians received from the West and about whether tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nearly $44 billion worth from the Biden administration, have been successful in transforming the Ukrainian military into a NATO-standard fighting force.

The counteroffensive itself hasnt failed; it will drag on for several months into the fall, said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who recently visited the front lines. Arguably, the problem was in the assumption that with a few months of training, Ukrainian units could be converted into fighting more the way American forces might fight, leading the assault against a well-prepared Russian defense, rather than helping Ukrainians fight more the best way they know how.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has increasingly signaled that his strategy is to wait out Ukraine and its allies and win the war by exhausting them. American officials are worried that Ukraines return to its old tactics risks that it will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could play into Mr. Putins hands and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition.

Biden administration officials had hoped the nine Western-trained brigades, some 36,000 troops, would show that the American way of warfare was superior to the Russian approach. While the Russians have a rigidly centralized command structure, the Americans taught the Ukrainians to empower senior enlisted soldiers to make quick decisions on the battlefield and to deploy combined arms tactics synchronized attacks by infantry, armor and artillery forces.

Western officials championed that approach as more efficient than the costly strategy of wearing Russian forces down by attrition, which threatens to deplete Ukraines ammunition stocks.

Much of the training involved teaching Ukrainian troops how to go on the offensive rather than stay on defense. For years, Ukrainian troops had worked on defensive tactics as Russian-backed separatists launched attacks in eastern Ukraine. When Moscow began its full-scale invasion last year, Ukrainian troops put their defensive operations into play, denying Russia the swift victory it had anticipated.

The effort to take back their own territory is requiring them to fight in different ways, Colin H. Kahl, who recently stepped down as the Pentagons top policy official, said last month.

But the Western-trained brigades received only four to six weeks of combined arms training, and units made several mistakes at the start of the counteroffensive in early June that set them back, according to U.S. officials and analysts who recently visited the front lines and spoke to Ukrainian troops and commanders.

Some units failed to follow cleared paths and ran into mines. When a unit delayed a nighttime attack, an accompanying artillery bombardment to cover its advance went ahead as scheduled, tipping off the Russians.

In the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry Ukraine sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to U.S. and European officials. The toll included some of the formidable Western fighting machines tanks and armored personnel carriers that the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians.

Military experts said that using newly learned tactics for the first time was always going to be hard, especially given that the Russian response was to assume a defensive crouch and fire massive barrages of artillery.

They were given a tall order, said Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and a former U.S. Marine officer, who has also traveled to the front lines. They had a short amount of time to train on new equipment and to develop unit cohesion, and then they were thrown into one of the most difficult combat situations. They were put in an incredibly tough position.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine acknowledged in late July that his countrys counteroffensive against dug-in Russian troops was advancing more slowly than expected.

We did have plans to start it in the spring, but we didnt because, frankly, we had not enough munitions and armaments and not enough properly trained brigades I mean, properly trained in these weapons, Mr. Zelensky said via video link at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual national-security conference.

He added that because we started it a bit late, Russia had time to mine all of our lands and build several lines of defense.

Ukraine may well return to the American way of warfare if it breaks through dug-in Russian defenses, some military experts said. But offense is harder than defense, as Russia demonstrated last year when it abandoned its initial plans to advance to Kyiv.

I do not think theyre abandoning combined arms tactics, Philip M. Breedlove, a retired four-star Air Force general who was NATOs supreme allied commander for Europe, said in an interview. If they were to get through the first, second or third lines of defense, I think youre going to see the definition of combined arms.

Speaking at the Aspen forum, Jake Sullivan, President Bidens national security adviser, said, Ukraine has a substantial amount of combat power that it has not yet committed to the fight, and it is trying to choose its moment to commit that combat power to the fight when it will have the maximum impact on the battlefield.

That moment appeared to come last week when Ukraine significantly ratcheted up its counteroffensive with two southward thrusts apparently aimed at cities in the Zaporizhzhia region: Melitopol, near the Sea of Azov, and Berdiansk, to the east on the Azov coast. In both cases, the Ukrainians have advanced only a few miles and have dozens more to go.

But analysts question whether this second wave, relying on attacks by smaller units, will generate enough combat power and momentum to allow Ukrainian troops to push through Russian defenses.

Gian Luca Capovin and Alexander Stronell, analysts with the British security intelligence firm Janes, said that the small-unit attack strategy is extremely likely to result in mass casualties, equipment loss and minimal territorial gains for Ukraine.

U.S. officials said, however, the surge in Ukrainian forces in the past week came at a time when the Ukrainians were clearing paths through some of the Russian defenses and beginning to wear down Russian troops and artillery.

A Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details and intelligence assessments, said the Russians were stretched and still experiencing problems with logistics, supply, personnel and weapons.

General Breedlove concurred and said he still expected the Ukrainian counteroffensive to put Russia at a disadvantage.

The Ukrainians are in a place now where they understand how they want to employ their forces, he said. And were starting to see the Russians move backwards.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting from London.

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Ukrainian Troops Trained by the West Stumble in Battle - The New York Times