The importance of Ukraine's rapid advance

 Benjamin Jensen, Professor of Strategic Studies, Marine Corps University:

Ukrainian forces, aided by Western firepower, have upset traditional military logic once again.

Advancing deep into Ukrainian territory seized by Moscow earlier in its invasion, a counteroffensive launched in September 2022, has forced back the invading Russian army. In the process Kyiv has recaptured over 2,000 square miles of land in the country’s northeast and left Moscow’s prized units like the 1st Tank Guards Army in disarray.

The success of the counteroffensive has shown that what is known in military circles as “operational art” – the creative use of time, space and forces to achieve a position of advantage – can be more important than relative combat power and simply counting the tanks and artillery possessed by either side in conflict.

And while this latest operational turning point in Ukraine is not the end of the conflict, as a defense strategist with more than 19 years of military experience, I see three key insights about modern warfare in the recent Ukrainian success.
1. Deception is still possible in conflict

Modern war takes place during an open-source intelligence revolution in which commercial satellite photos and a constant stream of social media facts and fiction bombard politicians, soldiers and citizens. This flood of information makes hiding large military formations increasingly difficult, if not impossible. Yet, Ukrainians have shown the world that a globally connected information environment does not mean the art of deception is dead.

Ukraine’s military planners used old concepts optimized for a new era in designing its counteroffensive. They employed a variant of the 19th-century military concept of “central position.” This concept is associated with Napoleon, who when confronted with two armies, positioned his forces between them to split the enemy. This allowed the French leader to concentrate his forces in one location, even when they were outnumbered overall.

In the recent counteroffensive, Ukraine used a central position to confront two concentrations of Russian forces, one in the east around the city of Kharkiv and the Donbas region – which includes portions of Donetsk and Luhansk – and a second in the south along the Dnieper River and Kherson. These Russian forces collectively outnumbered Ukraine’s army and possessed greater numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and attack aircraft.

While Ukraine was building up forces in Kherson in the south and using rocket artillery, sabotage and unconventional warfare to attack infrastructure to isolate Russian troops, it also maintained a large armored force in the east. This gave Ukraine the ability to fix Russian forces along one front while attacking on another.

Ukraine’s central position made Russia have to factor in the possibility of Ukrainian troops attacking in either direction.

Ukraine also employed a clever form of deception adopting elements of what is known as “Magruder’s Principle.” This maxim holds that it is easier to induce a target to maintain a pre-existing belief than introduce a new idea.

By conducting strikes that isolated Russian forces along the Dnieper River and making public statements that suggested Ukraine would attack Kherson, Ukraine reinforced Russian views that Kherson would be the initial main area of attack during the counteroffensive. This use of public statements and action to shape an adversary’s decision-making is also consistent with the old Soviet concept of “reflexive control,” which uses misinformation to skew how the target perceives the world and conditions them to make self-defeating decisions.

As a result, Russia moved forces to the south to bolster its fighting positions in Kherson. Doing so likely hollowed out Moscow’s forces in the east and compromised its ability to deploy reserves.

Combined with Ukraine’s central position, this clever ruse meant that Kyiv set the conditions for the large-scale rout of Putin’s army in the east and future operations to retake Kherson.
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There is much more.

The plan appears to have worked brilliantly.  The Russians are on their heels in a retreat that can't be considered a retrograde operation.  Troops are throwing down their arms and taking off their uniforms as they run for the rear.

See, also:

Occupiers are preparing retreat routes in Kherson Oblast, they have sunk 9 wagons General Staff