Forest Warfare Tactics in the Ukraine War

Much of the coverage of the Ukraine war focused on the open farmland and village-to-village battles of the eastern steppe, but a significant portion of the conflict's most decisive engagements unfolded in and around forested terrain. Ukraine's landscape — particularly in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv oblasts in the northeast — contains substantial pine and mixed deciduous forests interspersed with agricultural land. These forests profoundly shaped tactics, offering cover from observation, limiting the effectiveness of drone surveillance, channelizing movement, and creating conditions for the ambush-style combat at which Ukrainian forces excelled during their most successful operations.

The Forest as Tactical Asset

Forested terrain provides three overlapping tactical benefits: concealment (the forest blocks optical observation), cover (trees and undergrowth reduce the lethal radius of artillery and fragmentation munitions), and canalization (forests restrict vehicle movement to tracks and roads, creating predictable avenues that defenders can prepare). In modern warfare with omnipresent aerial surveillance, the concealment advantage has become disproportionately valuable — a platoon in a mature pine forest is near-invisible to a drone at 200 metres altitude, while the same platoon in open farmland is immediately identifiable.

Ukrainian forces recognized this asymmetry early and incorporated forest use into their defensive and offensive planning. In the initial Russian advance in February–March 2022, Ukrainian ambush teams used the forests north of Kyiv and in Chernihiv Oblast to isolate and destroy elements of the Russian convoy that extended down the E-95 highway toward Kyiv. These early-war successes were partly attributable to Ukrainian familiarity with local forest terrain and tracks that Russian force commanders — navigating from maps without local knowledge — did not exploit to protect their columns.

Kharkiv Oblast: Forest Terrain in the Counteroffensive

The September 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive unfolded largely through forested terrain in Kharkiv Oblast's northern reaches — particularly the broad forested areas around Vovchansk, Balakliya, and the Oskil River forests. Ukrainian assault brigades exploited these forests to move units to attack positions while maintaining concealment from Russian reconnaissance drones. The operational surprise achieved — Russian forces were reportedly unaware of the scale of the approaching counteroffensive until it struck — owed substantially to Ukrainian forces' ability to stage under forest canopy rather than in open assembly positions visible from the air.than in open assembly positions visible from the air.

Ukrainian 57th Motorized Infantry Brigade and other units advancing through the forests around Kupyansk used tree-line corridors to approach crossroads towns from multiple directions simultaneously, preventing Russian defenders from establishing coherent defensive lines. The forested approaches allowed Ukrainian armored vehicles to close within 500–1,000 metres of Russian positions before coming into direct-fire range, dramatically reducing the exposure time in which Russian anti-tank systems could engage.

Drone Limitations Under Tree Canopy

The single most important tactical property of forested terrain in the Ukraine war was its partial neutralization of drone surveillance. Commercial quadrotor drones — Mavic series and equivalents — have limited ability to observe targets under a closed forest canopy when operating at safe altitudes of 100 metres or above. The camera's angle of view provides only glimpses through canopy gaps; dense pine forest at its best completely denies observation of the forest floor from overhead. Fixed-wing observation drones fare similarly — their high transit altitude and limited loiter capability over specific forest areas restricted their utility for monitoring units sheltering in woodland.

This limitation directly influenced tactical behavior. Ukrainian and Russian units learned to move under forest cover whenever possible and to occupy forest positions for rest, vehicle maintenance, and staging in preference to open farmsteads. Ammunition storage moved into forest-edge areas. Artillery positioned in forest clearings was significantly harder to observe and fire-correct against than artillery in open fields. The net effect was that forested terrain became contested high-value ground, fought over with an intensity that went beyond its intrinsic topographic significance.

Canopy Penetration Methods

Both sides developed methods to partially overcome the drone surveillance gap in forests. Thermal drones — using infrared rather than visible-light cameras — can detect heat signatures through gaps in deciduous canopy when leaves are absent in winter and can detect heat signatures through even dense canopy when targets are warm enough (running vehicle engines, fires). Artillery radar was used to locate and track gun positions through acoustic-seismic detection. Russia employed reconnaissance-optimized Orlan-10 drones with oblique-looking cameras that could identify forest-edge positions by examining tree lines from the side rather than looking down through canopy from above.

Russian Forest Assault Failures

Russian forces demonstrated a consistent pattern of tactical difficulty in forest terrain throughout the war. Russian tactical doctrine, in common with most large-army thinking, is oriented toward combined-arms maneuver on terrain where vehicles can operate freely and artillery can be observed and adjusted. Forests denied all of these advantages simultaneously: vehicles were forced onto roads and tracks, making column movement predictable and vulnerable; artillery adjustment was difficult without drone coverage; and infantry advancing through undergrowth lost the formation cohesion and communication that fire-and-maneuver requires.

The Kreminna forest battles in particular — stretching through winter 2022–2023 and into 2023 — illustrated Russian difficulty. Ukrainian forces defending in the mixed forest of northeastern Luhansk Oblast held prepared positions under constant Russian infantry assault for months, exploiting the canopy cover to limit Russian drone observation while maintaining their own defensive fires. Russian forces repeatedly took casualties in forest assaults without achieving breakthrough, with the canopy preventing effective close air support and limiting artillery observation to acoustic-based fire solutions of lower accuracy.

Ukrainian Use of Tree Lines

Separate from closed-canopy forest, the agricultural tree lines (shelterbelts) planted during the Soviet era across Ukraine's steppes served distinct tactical functions. These linear features — typically 10–30 metres wide and running for km — provided concealment corridors along which infantry and vehicles could move laterally without crossing open terrain. Ukrainian commanders became skilled at routing force movements through sequences of connecting tree lines, achieving what would otherwise have required road movement across surveilled open ground. The shelterbelts became tactical features analogous to hedgerows in Normandy — cover and concealment infrastructure that both sides learned to fight through, past, and along.

FAQ

Do thermal drones work in forests?

Thermal drones can detect heat signatures in forests under certain conditions: running vehicle engines that emit large heat plumes through canopy gaps, fires, and in winter when deciduous canopy is absent. Dense, dry pine forests present the greatest challenge to thermal penetration; wet deciduous forests in full leaf are also effective. Overall, forests significantly reduce but do not eliminate thermal drone effectiveness, particularly against large or hot targets like running vehicle engines.

What anti-armor weapons were most effective in forest ambushes?

In the 2022 forest ambushes, Ukrainian forces used RPG-7, RPG-29, NLAW, and Javelin weapons. NLAW proved particularly effective in forest terrain due to its short arming range, direct-attack mode, and operator standoff — allowing engagement from concealed positions within tree lines before moving. Javelin's top-attack mode was less applicable in dense forest where trees can intercept missiles in the attack maneuver. RPG-7 and RPG-29 were used at close range (50–200 metres) where forest roads forced vehicle passage within engagement range.

How did Ukraine coordinate artillery with forest-based observation in the Kharkiv counteroffensive?

Ukrainian forward observers in Kharkiv Oblast used a combination of terrain masks — observing from forest edges across open fields — and drone observation from above canopy edges to adjust artillery. The forest-based positions gave observers cover from enemy direct observation while allowing them to see across open fields toward Russian positions. Where drone observation was possible at forest edges, the standoff thermal cameras on drones provided precise shell-burst observation without exposing human observers.

Are forests effective against Russian thermobaric weapons?

No — thermobaric munitions (such as the TOS-1A's BM-21 rockets) are specifically designed for forest and urban clearing, using a fuel-air explosive effect that transmits over a wide area and penetrates bunkers and dug-in positions. Russian use of TOS-1A systems was documented in forested areas near Kreminna and elsewhere. The forest provides no protection against thermobaric weapons and may actually concentrate the overpressure effect. This made TOS-1A a feared system among Ukrainian forest defenders.

Did Ukrainian forces have any disadvantages in forest terrain?

Yes. Forest terrain also imposed challenges on Ukrainian offensive operations. Mechanized assault through forest required vehicles to stay on roads, making attacks predictable. Communication within dense forest was degraded by terrain masking of radio signals, requiring more relay points. Resupply within forest positions required either vehicle access to narrow tracks — vulnerable to interdiction — or personnel carrying loads on foot. These challenges were manageable for Ukrainian defenders but constrained offensive operations using forest terrain.

Sources

1. Ukrainian Ground Forces public statements on Kharkiv counteroffensive tactics, September–October 2022.
2. Jack Watling, RUSI, Stormbreak: Fighting Through Russian Defences in Ukraine's 2023 Offensive, 2023.
3. Petro Chernik, Ukrainian National Defence University, analysis of forest terrain and drone limitations, 2023.
4. Rob Lee, War Studies assessment of Kreminna forest battles and force attrition patterns, 2022–2023.
5. Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), The Russian Military and the Ukraine War, 2023.