Western sanctions are beginning to affect Russia’s ability to produce modern weapons for its war in Ukraine, NATO’s top military adviser told Reuters on Friday, although he added that Russian industry could still produce “a lot of munitions.”

The United States, the European Union and other countries have announced several packages of sanctions against Moscow since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, including a ban on the sale of advanced technology.

“They are increasingly hampered by sanctions because some of the components they need for their weapons systems come from Western industry,” said Rob Bauer, a Dutch admiral and chairman of the UN Military Committee, in an interview with NATO.

“We are now seeing the first major signs of this in terms of their ability to produce, for example, replacement cruise missiles and more advanced weapons,” he added.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday that the loss of technology due to EU sanctions had severely affected Moscow’s ability to support weapons production.

Both sides in the war face challenges because the conventional conflict has required spending on military supplies on a scale not seen in decades, Bauer said.

“As far as we know, the Russians still have a significant industrial base and are capable of producing a lot of ammunition. And they still have a lot of ammunition,” he added, speaking ahead of a two-day meeting of NATO defense chiefs. starting Friday in Estonia.

Moscow says what it calls a “special military operation” was necessary to prevent Ukraine from being used as a staging ground for Western aggression and to protect Russian speakers. Kyiv and its Western allies reject these arguments as baseless pretexts for an imperial-style war of aggression.

Old-fashioned Russian battles

President Vladimir Putin said on September 12 that Russia is holding up well in the face of Western sanctions. “The economic blitzkrieg tactic, the attack they were counting on, didn’t work,” he told state television while chairing a meeting on the economy.

Bauer said about 85 percent of Russian troops are already fighting in Ukraine, limiting Russia’s ability to expand its military presence because it cannot declare a general mobilization without declaring war.

“We are seeing a limited number of fresh troops. And the only thing we are sure of is that the level of training of these troops is not very high,” Bauer said.

This month, Ukraine stunned Russia with a counteroffensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, with Ukrainian officials saying they had retaken 9,000 square kilometers, about the size of the island of Cyprus.

Bauer said the advance was successful largely because Ukrainian forces had been training to NATO standards since 2014, allowing his units to take the initiative.

“One of the reasons they are so successful at the moment is that the Russians fight in a very old way,” he said.

“Each Russian unit receives instructions from higher authorities, so if something changes, they wait for a new order. The Ukrainians advanced so quickly that the Russians did not receive new orders and were forced to retreat and withdraw,” he says.