WASHINGTON, February 2. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces won’t be able to defeat Russia with Western weapons because Moscow is preemptively drawing up countermeasures against them, Mark Episkopos, adjunct professor of history at Marymount University, said in an op-ed for Responsible Statecraft.

"After two years of brutal fighting in which Russia has gradually gained the upper hand, and the stakes are higher than ever and the costs of continued miscalculation, potentially catastrophic," the expert pointed out.

According to him, "it is all but certain that the Russian military will continue honing their force dispersion methods and developing additional countermeasures to mitigate the future battlefield impacts of Western medium and long-range missiles." Episkopos added that more weapons supplies "risk putting Kiev and its Western partners in an even more precarious military position."

"Russia could likewise respond to expanded Western missile deliveries with a wide array of asymmetric measures facilitating a dangerous escalation in the war’s intensity," he warned. Episkopos also dismissed the notion that Russia was facing "critical missile shortages." Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out in 2023 that Ukraine had pinned high hopes on Western-made equipment but its use had failed to have much impact on the course of combat operations. According to Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Western countries were only "adding fuel to the fire," exacerbating Ukraine’s predicament. Besides, the weapons they are sending to Ukraine may "spread all over the world and there is the risk of them falling into the hands of various criminal groups." Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in turn, said that "a comprehensive, sustainable and fair solution to the conflict around Ukraine" required an end to weapons supplies.