A Crucial Weapon in Russia’s Spring Offensive: Leafy Trees

 

“In the age of drone warfare, Russia is expected to exploit the return of vegetation to help conceal its troops.

 

As spring takes hold, Russia is back on the offensive in Ukraine.

 

Russia has an edge in soldiers and matériel, and it will look to put those advantages to use by leveraging a critical springtime asset: foliage that helps conceal advancing troops from the omnipresent drones that hunt and strike almost anything that moves.

 

The days when troops pushed forward in tanks and other armored vehicles are largely over. Most attacks today are carried out on foot, with soldiers moving in small groups to reduce detection. Forested areas are scarce in Ukraine’s east and south, the main theater of the war. As a result, soldiers often move through the tree lines that border agricultural fields.

 

These lines are a legacy of Soviet-era policies that used trees to shield crops from wind. Now, they are used by troops to seek cover from enemy fire or regroup before an attack. They have also become pathways for troops trying to gain territory or to retreat from the front line.

 

Both attackers and defenders benefit from vegetation coverage, said Vladyslav Vishtalyuk, a major in Ukraine’s 14th National Guard Brigade, which is fighting near the city of Myrnohrad, in the eastern Donetsk region.

 

“Leaves in tree lines that are still relatively intact will significantly reduce visibility, making it harder to detect the enemy,” he said by telephone. “But it will also make it harder for the enemy to detect our positions.”

 

Capt. Dmytro Filatov, the commander of the Ukrainian First Separate Assault Regiment, which fights in the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, said he thought the vegetation would favor Russia more than Ukraine.

 

“Once foliage appears, it will give more advantage to the enemy, because they have more manpower, more infantry,” he said. “They will suffer fewer losses and will have more opportunities for concealment.”

 

Perhaps nowhere is the impact of vegetation more pronounced than along the Dnipro River in Zaporizhzhia. “The soil here is so fertile that everything blooms very, very quickly,” said Lt. Col. Oleh Tiahnybok, the commander of a drone battalion in Ukraine’s 128th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade.

 

Russian troops have been pushing through a water reservoir on the river, which dried up after a dam was destroyed in 2023. “Very dense groves of trees,” several times the height of a person, have sprung up in the reservoir, Colonel Tiahnybok said. “The enemy has the opportunity to accumulate and maneuver there with maximum concealment.”

 

In each of the past two years, the arrival of spring has marked the start of monthslong Russian offensives stretching into the autumn. These pushes have produced Moscow’s largest territorial gains.

 

As Ukrainian officials report an intensification of Russian assaults across the front line in recent days, soldiers on the ground said they expected this year to follow the same pattern.

 

“I think the situation will repeat itself this spring,” Captain Filatov said. “Not just think — I am confident.” Russia, he added, “will again achieve certain successes this spring.”

 

A Russian attack near the eastern city of Lyman in mid-March sent a stark signal to Ukrainian soldiers that Moscow’s spring offensive had begun.

 

Ukraine’s overall strategy this spring will largely remain unchanged, officials say. Its army is focused on holding the defensive line, using drones and extensive lines of anti-tank ditches, barbed wire and earthen berms built during the winter in preparation for a renewed Russian offensive. Ukraine also wants to inflict maximum losses on Russian troops to blunt their offensive abilities.

 

Ultimately, Kyiv aims to compel Moscow to negotiate a settlement rather than continue an assault. Whether that strategy will finally bear fruit this year remains to be seen. The conflict appears far from over, especially as U.S.-brokered peace talks enter a freeze because of the war in Iran.

 

Military analysts cautioned that Ukraine’s improvements were partly tied to wintertime conditions. Russian soldiers’ movements were complicated by frigid temperatures and the lack of vegetation. Ukrainian defenders, by contrast, simply had to stay in place and hold the line, limiting their exposure.” [1]

 

1. A Crucial Weapon in Russia’s Spring Offensive: Leafy Trees. Constant Méheut; Konovalova, Olha.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Apr 6, 2026.