Early Lessons of the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War

The first week of the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War has resulted in some 5,000 Russians killed, three times that number wounded and maimed, and as many as 3,000 Russians captured (according to one NATO nation). Reports indicate that more than 500 Russian armed vehicles, including more than 200 tanks, and more than 100 combat aircraft have been destroyed. After less than a week of fighting it is possible to draw some initial conclusions about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.?

Bottom Line Up Front: The war in Ukraine has revealed that the Russian armed forces are not a 21st Century army composed of exclusively of Little Green Men but remain solidly ensconced in the 20th Century. They have changed little for the better (and some for the worse) since the USSR’s war in Afghanistan and still consist predominately of poorly trained, motivated, and equipped conscripts. The man responsible for the debacle to date is Russian President Vladimir Putin who, despite promises, failed to invest meaningfully in the Russian Armed Forces. Instead, Putin invested deeply in the Russian security forces and intelligence apparatus, which protect him from the Russian people and keep him in power.?

It is clear after less than a week of fighting that both Russian and Ukraine were unprepared for this war. According to reports, one reason for the shortage of ammunition and even weapons among Russian armed forces is that the Russian defense industry was not notified of the conflict and is now simply unable to coop with the sudden demand. The Ukrainians too revealed themselves to be short of ammunition and weapons. However, the international community is stepping in to remedy these shortages. In the end, the Ukrainians showed themselves to be not only the faster learners and but also the better soldiers. In the first week of the conflict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian military and people showed themselves more than a match for Vladimir Putin and his minions. Thus, Putin’s victory parade in Ukraine has been transformed into an immense funeral procession. However, the war is far from over.?

A Realistic Appraisal of One’s Enemy Matters. Russian hubris is a major factor for the Russian defeat in Ukraine to date. Moscow gross underestimation of Ukrainian resistance is criminal. On the ground, Russian operations against Ukraine were less of a military operation and more of an administrative road march into the country from half a dozen different directions. The approximately 200,000 Russian military personnel that were committed to the operation were too dispersed to decisively defeat Ukrainian forces on any one front. Furthermore, Moscow failed to commit even this number all at once. Once Russian forces encounter resistance, they were committed to battle piecemeal in frontal attacks that were repeated even after they had failed. With the exception of a few air assault and amphibious landings, Russian tactics showed little finesse. And their seemed to be little coordination between advancing ground forces and (what should have been) supporting air forces. Each branch seemed to be operating independently. ?

Knowing the Truth on the Ground Matters. Putin believed that tens of thousands of Ukrainians would rally to the Russian flag and quickly bring down the government in Kyiv. He was mistaken. Rather than provide the Russian President with the truth, the sycophants surrounding him told him what he wanted to hear.?

Numbers and Love of Country Matter. Russia launched a less than surprise attack on a militarily (more) prepared and numerically superior force. Facing the Russians were some 200,000 Ukrainian servicemembers equipped with 2,500 tanks, more than 12,000 other armored fighting vehicles, 1,000 self-propelled artillery pieces and 500 missile launchers at the beginning of the conflict. These proved enough to either completely stop or slow the Russian advance into the country, while full mobilization of all males between the ages of 16 and 60 (augmented by thousands of female volunteers) swelled Ukrainian ranks by more than another hundred thousand additional reserve personnel and volunteers in the first days of the conflict. Ukrainians commander and soldiers proved themselves more aggressive on the battlefield with too many Russian formations awaiting orders and developments passively (reminding some of Israelis battling the Arabs). ?

Cyber Warfare Matters. Moscow not only failed to wage meaningful cyber warfare against Ukraine and proved vulnerable to cyber-attacks against government sites. The Russian failed to hit Ukrainian command and control sites early in the conflict and failed to shut down the country’s communications network.?

Friends Matter. Moscow’s temporary success in shutting down the internet in Ukraine was immediately countered by the repositioning of Starlink satellites over Ukraine, restoring the connection. This was a move not anticipated by Moscow. Nor was the cyber war waged by Anonymous (the international consortium of hackers) against Russian government websites. Furthermore, Ukraine was well served by the US and NATO intelligence communities, which kept Kyiv appraised of Moscow’s intent and the status of Russian forces in the country, allowing the MOD to mass and direct its forces where they were most needed and to target high value Russian weapons systems. Also, Ukraine’s friends throughout the international community began sending weapons and other material to support Kyiv (although this had little impact in the first week of the conflict). Finally, Ankara limited the number of Russian warships that could transit through the Bosporus, retarding Moscow’s efforts to reinforce its operation on the Black Sea.?

Air Superiority Matters. Unbelievably, Russia failed to establish air superiority over the battlefield, leaving its forces at the mercy of Ukrainian air and UAV strikes. Russia failed to destroy Ukraine’s air capability, failed to take control of the skies, failed to operate an effective air defense, and failed to jam effectively. The Russian failure to use UAVs was perhaps less surprisingly as Moscow’s unwillingness to invest meaningfully in domestic UAV technology forced Russia to purchase and use Israeli UAVs in Ukraine.?

Winning and Losing in the Opening Days of a Military Operation Matter. Within the first five days of the conflict, Ukrainian forces had established psychological superiority over their poorly trained, poorly motivated, and generally inept counterparts. Russian POWs revealed that many were unprepared for the Russian attack in Ukraine, with some caught training along the border and thrown into the conflict unprepared mentally or militarily. Others were told that they were advancing into the Donbass as peacekeepers. One entire platoon of Russian soldiers surrendered after realizing that they were fighting Ukrainians. Although some Russian elite units wore state-of-the-art kit, most went to war with material decades old.?

Security on the March Matters. Immense Russian convoys, some almost 3.5 miles long, advanced with little security either on the ground and in the air and proved themselves vulnerable to Ukrainian UAV strikes. One video shows more than a dozen Russian vehicles destroyed by missile fire from multiple UAVs. The Ukrainians are using not only domestically produced UAVs but also Turkish UAVs, while Russian UAVs have been notably absent from the battlefield.?

Logistics Matter. Kyiv showed great wisdom in choosing to interdict Russian Lines of Communications from the onset of the conflict, showing that the Ukrainians, with much more to lose, were much more intellectually invested in this conflict than the Russians. This left many Russian troops short of ammunition, fuel, and rations. Some soldiers ransacked Ukrainian stores for food, while others went door to door begging for food. By the fourth day of the conflict, a lack of fuel had forced Russian tracked and wheeled vehicle convoys to pull over to the side of the road while awaiting the arrival of fuel tankers. This left them at the mercy of Ukrainian air and artillery strikes as well as anti-tank hunter-killer teams.?

A Loyal Population Matters. Russian attempts at unconventional operations were generally unsuccessful. Ukrainian MOD instructed its population to keep it informed of not only Russian troops movements but also of any suspicious strangers roaming their neighborhoods. As a result, Russian attempts to infiltrate sabotage and assassination teams into Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cites were stymied. Furthermore, Russian armored and infantry columns entering Ukrainian cites were met not with flowers but with a cascade of flaming Molotov cocktails that repulsed their advances.?

Conclusion. Russia may still win this war. But only if it commits another half a million men and thousands of additional armored fighting vehicles, artillery pieces and combat aircraft and pummels Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities into dust. The result will be tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women and children killed and maimed