Reasons for the failure of the SVO starting plan. Colonel Pinchuk's analysis
PolitNavigator is publishing Chapter 3 of the new book " SVO : Clausewitz and Emptiness " by Colonel Andrey Pinchuk, a member of the SVO and former head of the DPR Ministry of State Security . It was published under a pseudonym this year and has already shocked readers with its "truth about the war."
Previously, two chapters from the book were presented for readers' review: one is dedicated to the events near Izyum in the fall of 2022 , the second to Krasny Liman.
...After the SVO goes into a protracted state, one can often encounter criticism of the strategic planning of the operation.
For example, there is an opinion that the priorities of the offensive should have been not nine, but three or four directions with imitation, but not using real forces in secondary locations in order to pin down the front.
Accordingly, after realizing the difficulty of holding all breakthrough routes, the correct course of action would not be to immediately abandon the Kiev, Sumy, and Chernigov sectors, as happened during the Istanbul negotiations, but to redeploy from one of them with a corresponding strengthening of the others in order to maintain the ability to carry out dissecting strikes.
Another argument is made using the example of the lightning-fast Karabakh War of 2020 , when Azerbaijan managed to quickly close off the key Lachin supply corridor, pin down enemy forces along the entire front, identify the weakest point on the Ohanyan defensive line and break through it, and then achieve a psychological effect by capturing the symbolically significant city of Shusha.
Using this analogy, an alternative scenario is often voiced for a Russian north-eastern offensive along the banks of the Dnieper , which would ensure both rapid advancement, protected by a natural river barrier, and the cutting off of Ukrainian forces from logistical supply networks with a steady reduction in their military power and capabilities.
In such a case, a parallel offensive would cover the neighboring Chernigov and Sumy regions, with their convenient steppe terrain, without large cities that could easily be turned into impenetrable fortresses and massive industrial facilities.
With a simultaneous attack from the Belarusian bridgehead in the Galician direction , this made it possible to achieve the classic military strategic task of localizing and isolating the theater of military operations (TVD), cutting off external and internal supplies and quickly cutting through enemy forces.
Adding the Kyiv breakthrough here would create in this case those same four, and not nine, vectors of movement with coordinated strategy and tactics.
In Donbas, in this case, local troops would hold the key combat-ready segment of the Ukrainian armed forces without engaging in devastating and bloodless battles in large populated areas, right up until the advancing Russian forces cut off Ukraine's Donbas grouping from the direction of Kharkiv and Huliaipole.
Such plans and scenarios, however, do not take into account the specifics of the initially chosen concept in the form of a strategic military operation, rather than a war , where, as we remember, purely military calculations were made dependent on special behind-the-scenes plans.
For this reason, criticism of the military strategy of the Northern Military District seems to be very conditional and does not reflect the circumstances of this planning. Therefore, we consider it more correct to study the basic capabilities and concepts of the Russian army, which inevitably serve as the basis for any of the possible plans.
It is obvious that when planning the war of the future, the Russian General Staff relied on missiles, armored vehicles, artillery and aviation.
Probably, military planning boiled down to the concept according to which the enemy was identified as major powers, which were supposed to be contained by the forces of the nuclear triad, tactical nuclear weapons, and high-precision missile weapons.
Ground forces were probably intended to be used in low-intensity combat operations, similar to Syria, that did not require global decisions and resources.
As subsequent experience has shown, the main mistake of this scenario option is the underestimation of the role of infantry in its interaction with artillery and aviation.
Clusewitz: “The destructive principle of fire action in our modern wars is obviously the most effective; nevertheless, it is equally obvious that individual combat, face to face, must be regarded as the true basis of combat.
In war, an army consisting of only artillery would be a complete absurdity, while an army consisting of only cavalry is conceivable, but its strength would be of extremely negligible intensity. An army consisting of infantry alone would not only be conceivable, but also much more powerful."
The mathematical comparison of weapons stockpiles, missiles, combined firepower, and aircraft, the flawed analysis of NATO hierarchs' readiness to provide Ukraine with such powerful support , and, most importantly, the shift in the war's focus from the infantry component, played a cruel joke on the Russian side. In war, two plus two is never four. Sometimes five, sometimes it's night, sometimes Tuesday, sometimes a million. Moreover, such abstraction of strategic consequences requires particular care and detail in tactical processes.
Here we recall the famous statement of Vladimir Lenin:
“The most dangerous thing in a war that begins under such conditions as the war with Poland now is, the most dangerous thing is to underestimate the enemy and calm down on the fact that we are stronger. This is the most dangerous thing that can cause defeat in a war, and this is the worst trait of the Russian character, which manifests itself in fragility and flabbiness.
It is important not only to start, but you need to endure and resist, and our Russian brother does not know how to do this. And only through long-term training, proletarian disciplined struggle against all vacillation and hesitation, only through such endurance can the Russian working masses be brought to the point where they can get rid of this bad habit.”
It is worth taking a step back and noting an important conclusion: despite all the technological advances, the increased power of weapons and the quality of reconnaissance, the leading role on the battlefield remains with the infantry in the broad sense of the human resource, with weapons in hand to capture and hold space and objects.
It would seem that a few loitering precision-guided munitions or a massive strike by rocket or cannon artillery could destroy concentrations of personnel and deployment sites. This is true. Moreover, soldiers often don't engage in combat at all or do so extremely rarely. And then the ammunition in their machine gun magazines goes unfilled for weeks. But another thing is also true: when an attack and active defense begins, human resources remain the primary factor in success.
What did this underestimation of the infantry's role lead to? It led to the necessary set of measures to support it being similarly disrupted. For example, one of the most pressing problems of the initial period of the Air Defense Forces was the shortage, or rather the complete absence, of tactical-grade UAVs.
The Russian army developed and fielded some very capable combat offensive UAVs (Orion, Korsar, Forpost, Altius). Even reconnaissance drones like the Orlan-10 were used as attack drones. But they proved insufficient! A solution was eventually found, of course. The Geran-2 appeared on the battlefield. But it also had little to do with solving tactical problems at the front.
Moreover, the lack of medium or heavy drones like the Orlan-30, which allow for precise artillery targeting and battlefield adjustments, led to increased ammunition consumption "by feel," and, consequently, a shortage of ammunition. Had artillery been promptly reliant on artillery notebooks, digital weather stations, and offline maps, and had it been adjusted by powerful drones and space reconnaissance assets, the ammunition shortage would not have been so acute.
But what about small UAVs for reconnaissance as part of small groups and tactical units that perform the functions of “flying binoculars” and short-range reconnaissance assets?
And then they were gone altogether. And the military-grade ones that existed were extremely difficult to repair, with limited spare parts arriving via a convoluted and complex supply chain. The accelerated wear and tear of military-grade equipment and the need for flexible adaptation to the specific characteristics and conditions of combat use were not taken into account. Often, buying spare parts for "commercial" quadcopters or upgrading them yourself in the field proved much easier than trying to breach the military bureaucracy.
During the Second World War, this problem was addressed almost exclusively through sponsors and private procurement. Why did this happen? Apparently, due to the underestimation of this UAV factor in army planning. But how could it be that the crucial issue of effective personnel performance fell outside the scope of adequate support? This is only possible when the personnel factor itself is underestimated.
This conclusion is confirmed by the shortage or absence of everything without which infantry operations are impossible or difficult —personal protective equipment (helmets and body armor), communications, medical supplies, and basic life support equipment. What's the point of them if a missile or aircraft decides everything? We've seen the results.
Moreover, the already widely known problem of UAVs also has the following, quite short-term prospect - the large-scale use of swarms of drones controlled by artificial intelligence. The ability of traditional air defense systems to counter this is highly questionable. And if this problem is not solved now, as well as our own capabilities are not developed, then in the near future a new military-technological crisis will be inevitable.
Underestimating the role of infantry personnel also led to strategic planning errors. The traditional approach, in which one of the key objectives is to localize the theater of military operations, was also abandoned. Why cut off a specific location if there's no one to fight in it? Just launch missile strikes.
At the same time, the enemy, guided by the classical algorithms of military theory, cut off the logistics supply channels of the Russian army, thereby repeatedly achieving retreats without grueling frontal battles.
If Russia had pursued a similar approach from the outset, with the primary focus on complete isolation from Western supplies, the subsequent picture would have been different. Yes, Ukraine occupies a vast territory. But when fuel and lubricant supplies were the goal, other objectives and instruments automatically became secondary. The outcome is well known.
Moreover, when the effectiveness of high-precision strikes turned out to be different from what was seen in the plans, staff planning again tilted and now infantry units often moved forward without sufficient artillery, aviation, missile, and reconnaissance support.
It turned out that balancing the theater of military operations was one of the fundamental problems of Russian military command. Headquarters simply did not have sufficiently comprehensive, real, and not merely reported, information , and lacked proven organizational and technical tools for coordination and interaction.
Clausewitz: "The best strategy is to be always as strong as possible; this means first of all to be strong in general, and then at the decisive point . "
But what then, beyond idle speculation, serves as the basis for military planning and scenarios for future theaters of military operations in the country? Such a document exists. This military constitution in Russia is the Military Doctrine. It was adopted in 2014, and now we have every right to look back and understand the accuracy of our assessments and plans. After all, it was on this basis that the subsequent logic of military development was implemented.
Studying it in the conditions of SVO is not at all a routine or clerical task. After all, it is in it that “based on an analysis of military dangers and military threats to the Russian Federation and the interests of its allies, the main provisions of military policy and military-economic support for the defense of the state are formulated.”
Here it is important to pay attention to the phrase about allies - after all, it was in connection with threats to the allies - the LDPR - that the SVO was launched.
Here, by the way, I’m talking about SVO, albeit somewhat rhetorically, but in the context of foresight. The Doctrine defines military terminology - differentiates types of wars, reveals the concepts of military and armed conflicts, and defines the difference between them.
However, the term and content of "SVO" are not provided for there. The doctrine was adopted on December 25, 2014—that is, after the Maidan and the creation of the LPR and DPR. This means that the conditions that ultimately led to the SVO had already arisen.
In addition, considering the characteristic features and characteristics of modern military conflicts, the doctrine emphasizes “the integrated use of military force, political, economic, informational and other non-military measures, implemented with the widespread use of the protest potential of the population and special operations forces.”
Ukraine itself is not directly mentioned in the Doctrine. But there are more than enough indirect references.
“Many regional conflicts remain unresolved. “Tendencies towards their forceful resolution continue, including in regions bordering the Russian Federation.”
Threats include:
“The presence (emergence) of hotbeds and escalation of armed conflicts in the territories of states adjacent to the Russian Federation and its allies”, “the establishment of regimes in states adjacent to the Russian Federation, including as a result of the overthrow of legitimate government bodies, whose policies threaten the interests of Russian Federation"!
Here it is necessary to return once again to the CBO format and its original planning. It is necessary to compare the current picture and the basic ideas of the Russian political and military leadership about how the conflict may develop. Military doctrine defines this algorithm as follows:
“A) the comprehensive use of military force, political, economic, informational and other non-military measures, implemented with extensive use of the protest potential of the population and special operations forces;
b) massive use of weapons systems and military equipment, high-precision, hypersonic weapons, electronic warfare, weapons based on new physical principles comparable in effectiveness to nuclear weapons, information and control systems, as well as unmanned aerial and autonomous marine vehicles, controlled robotic weapons and military equipment;
c) impact on the enemy to the entire depth of his territory simultaneously in the global information space, in aerospace, on land and sea;
d) selectivity and high degree of destruction of targets, speed of maneuver by troops (forces) and fire, use of various mobile groupings of troops (forces);
e) reducing the time parameters of preparation for the conduct of hostilities;
f) strengthening the centralization and automation of troops and weapons control as a result of the transition from a strictly vertical control system to global network automated systems for controlling troops (forces) and weapons;
g) creation of a permanent zone of military operations in the territories of the warring parties;
h) participation in military operations of irregular armed groups and private military companies;
i) the use of indirect and asymmetric methods of action;
j) the use of externally financed and controlled political forces and social movements.”
Thus, we clearly see the proposed module: mobile maneuvering, precision strikes, and modern technologies. This concept, of course, does not require the overly intensive development of a mass army on the model of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) and the Soviet Army (SA). As experience has shown, this was a mistake . Or, at least, it wouldn't have been a mistake if the original plan for a rapid Central Military District had been successful.
Incidentally, point "z" is of particular interest. As we see, the important role of PMCs and volunteers was nevertheless recognized. Unfortunately, the bias toward precision weapons and PMCs has greatly weakened the traditional military component.
The consequence is mobilization. Moreover, when discussing mobilization, one cannot help but touch upon the problems of its technical implementation. Why, then, did a country with experience in involving its entire population and economy in the defense against German aggression and in combating the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster find itself struggling to quickly and effectively implement the necessary mobilization processes? We believe the cause lies in the same fundamental misconception of wars as fleeting, targeted operations.
Another consequence is the reduction, or rather, the complete elimination, of so-called "cadre" units during Russian military reforms. Such units, while maintaining a basic officer cadre and fully equipped, allowed them to quickly recruit reservists and reach combat readiness. These were primarily regiments and divisions. This organizational structure allowed for the achievement of self-sufficient military structures. Apparently, the desire to save money, "develop" occupied space and territory, and the lack of foresight into large-scale military operations led to this outcome.
The irony was that Ukraine, on the contrary, began to develop its armed forces, and to do so precisely on the basis of "cadre" units . In this sense, the old adage—keep an eye on your adversary and don't shy away from using their experience—failed. Such data, however, should have, at a minimum, raised questions and appropriate reactions.
Apparently, at the start of the operation, the Russian generals took as the basis for their calculations a certain permanent composition of the armed formations of Ukraine and their static state, without particularly delving into the specifics and prospects of their dynamic deployment.
For example, at the beginning of 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' personnel strength was officially 215. Such a calculation could somehow clarify the number of Russian forces deployed during the first phase of the Second Military Operation, given the assumption that the bulk of the Ukrainian army is located in Donbas, stretched thin, its combat readiness varies, and the officer corps is skeptical of the political command.
However, in this calculation, there are no border guards, state security, railway troops, volunteers of nationalist battalions - all those involved in the fighting in the Donbass, thanks to whom the real combat readiness and number of armed formations actually approached 400 thousand. And this, let us pay attention once again, is the beginning of the SVO.
Because the morning after the start of the Second Military Operation, full (not partial) mobilization was declared in Ukraine. There is no doubt that when planning military operations of any intensity and nature, one of the most important tasks is a realistic assessment of the enemy's combat readiness, speed, and conditions of its deployment.
Only from the framed units, about 200 infantry battalions were hastily deployed, making a total of about 450, which made it possible to ensure superiority on the front line.
After all, at the beginning of the year, the combat mobilization reserve, taking into account the eight years of fighting Ukrainians have endured in Donbas, amounted to up to 1.5 million (or, according to other estimates, two million) people out of the 25-30 million people actually remaining in Ukraine, minus refugees and territories ceded to Russian control. That is, the standard estimate of 10 percent of the population yields an even higher mobilization reserve. Moreover, it is combat-ready, trained, and, most importantly, motivated specifically for the war with Russia.
Thus, by early autumn 2022, Ukraine managed to mobilize a total of between 700 and a million people, while maintaining reserves to increase these numbers.
Accordingly, the belated Russian measures in the fall of 2022 to “partially mobilize” the announced 300 thousand are catching up and clearly do not correspond to the circumstances of the theater of operations.
It can be assumed that this figure was not greater only due to the lack of sufficient resources for this – training grounds, barracks, officers, instructors, transport and other minimally sufficient equipment and weapons.
Of course, the fact that the generals were preparing for the “war of the past” and a little for the speculatively invented “war of the future”, without assessing the real signs of the “war of the present,” also played a role in these processes.
As a result, on the one hand, the experience of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was repeated, when Voroshilov attempted to attack enemy tanks with cavalry . However, judging by the consequences, there were no Tukhachevskys, Yakir, or Uborevichs of their own at that moment, capable of discerning the true face of the coming war. At least, none who could have made a real difference.
On the other hand, an unsuccessful cosplay of the American concept of “quick achievement and dominance ,” implemented in Iraq in the form of Operation Shock and Awe, has emerged.
Let us recall the basic provisions of the concept:
–The target is not only the enemy’s armed forces, but also “society in the broad sense.”
–War is a performance played out on television for three different audiences: the American audience, the enemy audience and the rest of the world.
– Conducting both combat operations and information warfare.
Four components of “Shock and Awe” according to the authors of the doctrine:
1.near total or absolute knowledge and understanding of self, advice, and environment;
2.rapidity and timeliness in application;
3.operational brilliance in execution;
4.and ( near ) total control and signature management of the entire operational environment.
This approach was clearly taken into account when planning the Ukrainian SVO campaign.
However, the successful implementation of such a concept in Russian conditions faced fundamental problems: weak execution discipline in implementing plans, problems of interaction, incorrect self-assessment of resources and their insufficient adaptation to the conditions of the operation.
Ultimately, the strict discipline and secrecy surrounding the organization of the Soviet Military District were undermined by a weak link between the headquarters command "on the ground." Overextended and poorly planned logistics, lacking adequate combat security, led to numerous attacks and the destruction of columns and individual forces, yet logistics is a particularly important aspect of the American concept.
It's worth noting here that the Russian Army entered the Central Military District with an under-reformed military logistics system. The Soviet principle of continuous, top-down, targeted delivery of materiel for the front line was replaced by the old NATO approach of fully filling "logistics centers" with requirements issued on a request-by-request basis. We call it "old" precisely because NATO is currently restructuring itself to a de facto Soviet system , modernized to meet contemporary Western needs and dubbed "Joint Vision 2020."
As a result, a combined principle emerged, the philosophy of which was the certainty that if there was to be a war, it would be on Russian soil. A significant portion of material support came to consist of outsourcing to the Ministry of Defense's external partners, depriving the army of logistical independence and flexibility. This approach did not even envisage full-fledged supplies from outside the country. Consequently, the newly launched Second Military Operation effectively failed to fit into this system.
Apparently, officials of the Russian Ministry of Defense took the definition of “defense” in the name of their department too literally and proceeded from this, without taking into account operations like SVO.
Clausewitz: "The defense may continually make use of everything it has prepared for the maintenance of the troops. Thus, in essence, the defender should not lack what is necessary, especially when operating in his own country; but this principle also holds true when defending in an enemy country.
On the contrary, the attacking side moves away from its sources of supply and must therefore, throughout the entire advance and in the first weeks after the stop, obtain for itself everything it needs from day to day, and the matter rarely does without shortages and difficulties.
In two cases these difficulties reach their climax. Firstly, at the onset - before the decision comes; then the enemy's reserves are still completely in his hands, and the attacker is forced to leave his reserves behind; he must keep his troops concentrated and therefore cannot use large spaces, even his transports cannot follow him once combat movements have begun. If adequate preparation is not made for this moment, it can easily happen that the troops, a few days before the decisive battle, begin to experience deprivation and need, which, of course, is not a suitable means for successfully introducing them into battle.
Secondly, food shortages occur mainly towards the end of the victory march, when communication lines become too stretched, especially if the war took place in a poor, sparsely populated, and perhaps hostile area. What a huge difference between messages from Vilna to Moscow, where every cart had to be obtained by force, and messages from Cologne - through Liege, Louvain, Brussels, Mons, Valenciennes, Cambrai - to Paris, where a commercial agreement or a bill of exchange is enough to get millions rations.
Often, due to food difficulties, the brilliance of the most brilliant victories dimmed, strength waned, and retreat, which became a necessity, gradually acquired all the signs of true defeat.”
In general, the American approach, since the Russian military has decided to rely on overseas experience, requires attention to detail. In contrast, the Ukrainian campaign has resulted in a massive shortage of intelligence and communications assets. And, even more importantly, an inability to quickly synthesize and incorporate both positive and negative experiences into subsequent planning and command.
Thus, planners were stuck between stereotypes of the past, postmodernist, unrealistic images of the future in the format of a convenient escape from reality for officials into a “digital abstraction,” and were unable to find the present.
As we have already indicated, there is an opinion that Soviet military development was strongly influenced by the belief that future wars are possible in two formats: either nuclear or low-intensity military conflict without extensive involvement of the front-line army component.
Incidentally, unlike the United States, which, after experiencing Vietnam, became convinced of the need to develop ground infantry. Afghanistan did not serve as such an example for the USSR due to the specific combat conditions and localized tasks, some of which fell squarely into the "special" category. Moreover, Afghanistan took place too close to the fall of the Soviet Union, meaning many of the lessons learned remained unimplemented.
As a result, the SVO was initially reduced to an attempt to create a massive shocking impact in several key areas. However, tactical skill and levels of interaction did not allow achieving a holistic cumulative effect.
At the same time, the most important aspect—the psychological and informational component—was essentially ignored. The issue of sufficiently motivating personnel participating in the operation and, at the same time, defeating the enemy's information can be considered unrealistic.
And it is important to note once again that another major problem that was not resolved in the first stages of the SVO was the lack of readiness to break the logistical and spatial connectivity of Ukrainian forces.
If a violation of the logistics of cargo delivery, the destruction of personnel and repair sites, the timely creation of an energy shortage by partisan sabotage and air strikes, and precision weapons had taken place, then the degree of subsequent military consolidation and, as a consequence, the success of the Ukrainian army would have been called into question . That did not happen.
Moreover, the initially planned “network-centric” format of conducting military operations was, to a certain extent, intercepted by the Ukrainians.
For example, Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet, well-protected against traditional electronic warfare, provided a flexible, high-speed, multi-layered communications network, dramatically improving the quality of much-needed interunit interaction. The Russian Army had no comparable system.
As an example, it is appropriate to quote from the Ukrainian media about the practical implementation of such implementation:
“This is what a modern command post in the Armed Forces of Ukraine looks like thanks to Starlink: the commander of a fire support company and the chief sergeant of a company of an air assault brigade, connected via Starlink, receive data from our drone, issue coordinates, are in constant communication and control the battle from tablets and smartphones.” .
There is another option for using “Starlink”, which was described in detail by the Polish Internet resource “Defence24.pl” during an interview with a Polish mercenary fighting in Ukraine, working on a 152-mm howitzer gun at the time of the attack of Russian troops on Lisichansk. The interview described how a group of UAV operators with a Starlink terminal was attached to their crew.
The UAV operators were positioned several kilometers in front of the gun. Accordingly, fire was conducted solely based on the UAV's coordinates transmitted via Starlink. No shots were fired arbitrarily, based on intelligence or any other plan. The UAV operators also coordinated a pre-planned rapid withdrawal of the crew to prevent counter-battery fire.
It's also worth noting that virtually all Ukrainian combat equipment is equipped with digital beacons. A commander doesn't need to run around searching for his tank, gun, Ural truck, or KAMAZ truck, as is often the case in Russia. He doesn't need to scrutinize the symbols and markings on the armored vehicle hulls. A glance at a tablet is enough.
Since 2015, the Ukrainian army has been using NATO counter-battery radars AN/TPQ-36, -37, -50, and many others, synchronized with automated control systems. During Russian artillery and missile attacks, Ukrainian command staff tablets receive live coordinates from these radars. The commander has the ability to instantly assign a target, thanks to the Starlink system.
Accordingly, HIMARS MLRS and M777 howitzers receive the corresponding task. All. The time is minimal, up to 5 minutes, the effect is maximum. No skill or combat training in manual mode can give such a result.
What about in Russia? Eight months after the start of the special operation, on October 23, 2022, the Russian Skif-D satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit, which marked the beginning of the creation of high-speed data transmission in the interests of the Russian army.
An analysis of the open part of the project shows that more than six hundred such satellites are needed to fully launch the system. This situation says a lot about the timeliness of the process.
However, it would be wrong to speak of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' totally superior organizational or material resources. Any army automation is not a "thing in itself" and merely enhances the required level of combat readiness, without which it is a multiplication by zero.
The Ukrainian army, having superiority in infantry, simply and mercilessly threw its fighters to the front line and, after their decline, constantly filled the front with personnel in new streams or in rotation modes. Nobody spared people, and the renewable resource made it possible to transform quantity into quality.
Another question is that NATO’s supply of communications and reconnaissance equipment to the Ukrainian army was accompanied by a restructuring of the control system and organizational changes to suit real conditions and was aimed precisely at increasing efficiency. Thus, without a total increase in personnel, due to better training and equipment, the final combat result was significantly improved. Intelligence assistance also played a significant role in this.
Yes, the intelligence provided by the Western community is significant and plays a significant role. However, the birthmarks of a shared identity are still present. Regular attempts at "frontal assaults" (as in Sukhoi Stavka, Davydy Brod, etc.) are also present among Ukrainian forces, albeit interspersed with the consolidation of tactical mastery in key areas.
Often, the entire strategy of the Ukrainian Armed Forces boiled down to an offensive on as many fronts as possible, seeking out any opening and striking there. The sheer number of Ukrainian fighters in the first, and especially the second, stages of the Second Military Operation did play a role.
Without particularly sparing the personnel, the Ukrainian command probed the Russian defense with massive strikes and, discovering joints, struck at them, often leading to the retreat of units that were fully combat-ready for defense. In this sense, the military strategy of the Ukrainians has not undergone any changes since the Great Patriotic War.
In this regard, the challenges of the actual combat readiness of Russian army units and their manning deserve special mention. We will examine this problem separately using the specific example of the "Izyum standoff" of the spring and summer of 2022, but its comprehensive nature should be understood.
If you look at the analysis of NATO structures published in October 2022, you can see how the ratio of equipment and personnel fits into formulas for calculating Russian potential. For example, 10 tanks - one BTGr per thousand soldiers, one hundred tanks - respectively 10 BTGr and ten thousand soldiers. Probably, the Russian headquarters thought about the same thing at the beginning.
The reality turned out to be different.
Despite the significant number of armored vehicles, Russian units were understaffed. Either during peacetime, combat crews were staffed with conscripts, with the expectation that they would be transferred to contract service. Or, once at the front, there were widespread refusals to fight, which we will discuss in more detail in Chapter 5, "On Motivation."
Armored and other military vehicles were deployed to the combat zone without personnel. Naturally, when Ukrainian attacks occurred, the vehicles were immediately abandoned. There was a shortage of fuel for refueling and personnel for defense.
Ultimately, the Ukrainians ended up with the latest Russian T-90A and T-90M tanks. This gave the Western press grounds to publish articles in October 2022 with headlines like " Russia Turns Out to Be the Largest Arms Supplier to the Ukrainian Army ," stating, for example, that Ukraine received 320 tanks from Western suppliers and 436 from captured Russian tanks. Similar figures were cited for other tanks as well. For example, 210 infantry fighting vehicles were supplied by the West, while 452 were captured and abandoned by the Russian army.
Even if these figures are questioned, the fact of mass abandonment of equipment is still well known. The reasons are a lack of infantry, a low level of motivation, interaction, and communications. Separately, it is necessary to highlight the extremely weak interaction (and often its absence) with aviation and artillery.
Here, it's important to understand how Ukrainian units typically operated during an attack. Electronic warfare was used to jam the patchy, unprotected Russian communications (if they existed at all). Armored assault groups would breach the defenses, most often at the junctures of unit positions. Mobile assault groups would encircle Russian positions and then push them out. As Russian troops retreated, they often fell into ambushes, which Ukrainian forces organized in parallel with the breakthrough and pushback.
Lightly armored, maneuverable armored cars made it possible to gain high speed. Light mortars and support from combat drones dramatically increased firepower at the moment of attack. Soldiers with MANPADS and anti-tank systems blocked air interference and attempts to break through the armor.
High-quality reconnaissance, communications and control equipment, offensive UAVs and tactical coordination with artillery support provided the effect of real-time combat support.
The irony was that, according to various analytical data, there was a fairly large number of quite modern weapons in Russian military warehouses.
The problem was that only small numbers of "parade" units were trained to use it, and a significant portion of their personnel had left the army or suffered significant losses since the announcement of the SVO.
As a result, even if such weapons were issued to soldiers, and reports likely indicated that they were, their effectiveness tended to be zero, with soldiers preferring to use familiar and accustomed Soviet weapons . For example, when the army began issuing the new AK-12 assault rifle en masse—which, in addition to its design issues, required a completely different aiming skill than before—it was widely replaced by older AK-74s or even AK-47s.
The same situation occurred with the newest Kornet anti-tank missile systems. Trained on older Fagot and Metis ATGM systems, soldiers simply couldn't aim using the laser beam or the excellent thermal imager included with the system.
And a few more words about the difference in approaches.
Ukrainian oligarchs Akhmetov and others are using their industrial enterprises and facilities to equip defensive structures . Automated underground bunkers—units, equipment, and more.
At the same time, the classic shortage of entrenching tools on the Russian front line is widely known.
Heavy soil is removed with shovels, and trenches are equipped with protective devices that do not meet engineering standards , not shelters, but, for example, bags of excavated earth or questionable concrete devices.
These were not the only problems that plagued the rapid abandonment of positions near Izyum and Balakleya. There simply weren't enough defensive positions, and their standard didn't meet army-wide engineering requirements. As a result, heavy artillery shelling, and especially armored advances, simply decimated the positions.
And once again, the issue of combat automation must be emphasized. All the lofty talk about "modern warfare" is grounded in reality. Such a situation is unacceptable for any army attempting to achieve even the slightest success.
So-called GIS systems are of fundamental importance for the effectiveness of modern combat.
For example, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have a minimal time between target acquisition by the Bayraktar and the subsequent artillery strike. This experience, incidentally, was learned from the Azerbaijani campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh and was readily available to the Russian side. However, everyone drew their own conclusions.
At the same time, the Russian army, of course, has its own GIS system - “Panorama” and “Operator”. However, while working perfectly in local conditions, the system is completely unadapted to the scope of the system and is poorly connected with processes “on the ground”. And where should she work? There is no Internet, and providers like Tricolor are not capable of providing it in a full-fledged network mode for digital battle control systems, much less digital radio communications.
In contrast to the Ukrainian system, which is closed to satellite data from NATO allies and end-to-end to the tactical control of the battle of specific units and commanders.
Moreover, unlike the Russian version, the Ukrainian counterparts implement automated algorithms and solutions for processing information in a neural network format , which significantly speeds up and simplifies the final information product and the value of its practical use.
This situation requires an urgent change in decisions on military command and an actual restructuring of approaches.
Clausewitz: "If we survey military history with an unbiased eye, we find that cases where errors in such calculations have actually resulted in major failures, at least in strategy, are extremely rare. But if the concept of a skillful combination of the elements of time and space is to be taken to reflect all cases in which, through rapid marches, a decisive and active commander defeated several opponents with the same army (Frederick the Great, Bonaparte), then we would be in vain entangling ourselves in these purely conventional expressions. For clarity and fruitfulness of thought, it is necessary to call things by their proper names."
The correct assessment of one’s enemies (Down, Schwarzenberg), the risk of leaving only insignificant forces in front of them temporarily, the energy of forced marches, the audacity of lightning attacks, the increased activity that great people show in moments of danger - these are the true reasons for such victories. What does this have to do with the ability to correctly compare two simple things like time and space?
But even this ricocheting play of forces, when the victories at Rosbach and Montmiral gave the necessary scope for the victories at Leuthen and Montreux, a play to which great commanders more than once entrusted their fate in a defensive war, is still, to speak clearly and frankly, a rare phenomenon in history.
Much more often, the relative superiority of forces, that is, the skillful concentration of superior forces on a decisive point, is based on the correct assessment of this point and on the right direction that the army receives from the very beginning, on the determination that is required to neglect the unimportant in favor of the important, that is, keep your powers more concentrated. These are the characteristic features of Frederick the Great and Bonaparte."
English version :: Read in English: The Reasons for the Failure of the SVO Launch Plan. Colonel Pinchuk's Analysis