Putin's mistakes in Ukraine

 Strategy Page:

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Putin and his generals also missed what happened when NATO personnel served in Ukraine between 2014 and 2021 when they taught Ukrainian officers how to become a NATO-compatible force. This turned out to be a major advantage because the Russians were still using their rigid Soviet-era command and troops control procedures. By 2021 the Ukrainians had adopted more flexible Western methods where junior commanders were trained to improvise when necessary. The only Russian troops who did any of that were spetsnaz (special operations) forces. Most Russian troops follow detailed orders and, when they encounter something not covered in their orders, they halt and wait for further instructions. Ukrainian forces regularly exploited this. After nearly a year of fighting the Russians have not changed, even though the more flexible Ukrainians constantly win battles because of their initiative.

Ukrainians appreciate this training effort and it makes a difference on the battlefield. This is especially true because Russia is sending more troops to Ukraine with little or no training. That means the Russians suffer higher casualties and the Ukrainians lose far fewer men. After a few months of fighting in 2022, Russia had lost many of its veteran soldiers and officers. Since then, most of the new Russian troops have little training or advanced tech and suffer from low morale and poor leadership. That sort of thing makes a big difference in combat but is often discounted during peacetime.

Ukrainians could find out how this came to be, because the current NATO tactics began emerging in the late 1970s when NATO’s most powerful member (the U.S.) sought a new combat doctrine to make the best use of new weapons, an all-volunteer force and growing air superiority. West Germany was urging the United States to adopt tactics that would mean losing less German territory in the opening stages of a war. In 1982 this led to AirLand Battle doctrine, which emphasized meeting a Warsaw Pact (mainly Russian) invasion by attacking as well as defending. West Germany was reassured and those who had studied the 1972 Arab-Israeli war, which began with a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria, was quickly defeated by an Israeli “active defense” that emphasized attacking as well as defending. The Americans had already adopted an “active defense” doctrine in 1978 but AirLand Battle was a refinement of that, and evolved to the present with improved versions of these tactics.

The Russians believed interpreted AirLand Battle as the result of how much post-Vietnam military reforms had turned NATO defense plans into an offensive opportunity for NATO that made any Russian attack less likely to succeed and vulnerable to a NATO invasion of East Europe. The 1991 Iraq war certainly confirmed it, but Russians attributed that to poor quality Iraqi officers and troops.

After the East European Soviet satellite governments collapsed in 1989, it was revealed that the Soviets had become less confident of the ability and willingness of East European Warsaw Pact armies to assist Russian forces in attack or defense. Part of this was due to the aftereffects of the crackdown in East Europe after the uprisings of the 1950s and 60s. Western intel officials interviewed many of East European civilians getting out and thought the refugees were exaggerating. They weren’t and that became obvious in 1989 plus two years later when the USSR itself collapsed. Once the Ukraine War has ended, the Russian military may accept that the NATO tactics were a major reason for their failure in Ukraine. Russia would have a difficult, but not impossible time implementing a version of the NATO tactics for their forces. It would mean changing how their officers are trained and finally getting serious about reviving the use of NCOs, something the communists eliminated in the 1920s to prevent a counter-revolution against communist rule.
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There is much more.

Putin persists with his failed policies and that has made Russia a much weaker conventional power than it was before the war.  the losses of equipment and troops have been significant and the use of mercenaries has accomplished little beyond reducing the prison population while losing more battles.  The Russian equipment was not of great quality and some of it was just abandoned by troops who were not that motivated to fight to begin with.