Putin takes charge of Russian war effort

 Business Insider:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is making key decisions about the Ukraine war largely on his own, without input from his generals, analysts said in a report published last week.

But while doing so, Putin has proven to be more cautious than expected, said the report from the US-based RAND Corporation.

"Putin [is] making key decisions largely on his own without substantial influence from the Russian General Staff," the analysts said in the report.

RAND said that was simply because Putin does not trust those around him — and so makes "little use of economic or military expertise" at his disposal.

Western analysts have previously said that Russian military leaders, including Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, are likely concealing bad news about the war from Putin because they are increasingly concerned about the consequences for themselves.

Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation who focuses on Russia, wrote in a New York Times op-ed in July that there is an "atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty" in the Kremlin.

She wrote that Putin is "quick to blame traitors " and "self-censorship among top military leaders is likely to become more prevalent."

The RAND report said that, even in his isolation, Putin has been less eager than it thought to confront NATO, even as it continues to support Ukraine.

But this does not mean that he will continue to do so in future, it cautioned.

"If Russian territorial, personnel, and materiel losses continue to mount without improvements on the battlefield, he will face a set of unpalatable choices, including negotiations from a position of weakness, more extensive and potentially destabilizing mobilizations, or more draconian attempts to ensure internal control," it said.
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Dictators tend to do that especially when the war is not going well.  I suspect the generals may see this as a break for them since they will not be directly blamed for failure.  The war appears to be something of a stalemate at this point in terms of controlling territory although Ukraine has been able to attack Russian targets.

See, also:

Russia is scaling back its use of the feared Ka-52 attack helicopter after Ukraine got good at taking them out

And:

 Elite Ukrainian commandos on jet skis conducted a daring raid on a Russian electronic warfare station in Crimea, report says

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Each jet ski carried two Ukrainian frogmen and traveled 125 miles across the sea to reach the peninsula.

"Our first target was an electronic warfare station so powerful not even a compass could work within 20 miles of the shore," Borghese, the battalion commander who coordinated the mission on the day, told The Times.

The electronic warfare station had thwarted drone strikes and tracked British Storm Shadow missiles.

Levan, the second in command of the elite special forces regiment the Timur group, told The Times that he spent two weeks practicing the journey on a jet ski before their mission.

While the unit approached the peninsula, five Ukrainian support ships fired at Russian positions as a diversion tactic, per The Times.

The original plan was to place explosives at the site before leaving, but the soldiers were spotted and had to resort to their backup plan, and instead struck it with anti-tank weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, Borghese told The Times.
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After the attack, Russian forces chased the Ukrainian soldiers using warplanes and Raptor patrol boats, prompting a rapid and dramatic evacuation.
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Ukraine does not have much of a navy but uses jet skies as a make-do for this operation. 

And:

Russia is covering Ukraine with landmines. Clearing them will be extremely difficult

And:

 Tank battles of the kind the Abrams was built for are rare in Ukraine, where tanks aren't often killed in fights with enemy armor

Russian tanks were largely ineffective earlier in the war and are now not seen that much.  The Abrams can have an effective role in combined arms operations as well as in tank battles.

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Ukrainian officials told The Wall Street Journal that fewer than 5% of tanks destroyed since Russia's full-scale invasion have been killed by other tanks. An overwhelming majority have been wrecked by land mines, drones, anti-tank missiles, and artillery. Tank battles aren't happening often, the report said.

Tank battles do still happen, as recently released battlefield footage has showed, but they are uncommon. Land warfare experts at the Royal United Services Institute noted that earlier this year, writing in a report that "tank-on-tank engagements have become relatively rare."
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And:

 Russia picked the Black Sea naval fight it's now losing to Ukraine, which doesn't even have a fleet of its own

And:

 Russia reportedly loses £35m fighter jet to friendly fire in latest self-inflicted damage in Ukraine

And:

 New round of Russian conscription will include Ukraine's occupied territories

And:

 Russian forces try to recover lost positions around 4 settlements – General Staff report

And:

 Stolen Surface-To-Air Missiles Found In Kyiv Garage

ISW reports: 

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Russian forces continued offensive operations but did not advance on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on September 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks south of Avdiivka and Tonenke (7km northwest of Avdiivka) and near Nevelske (directly west of Donetsk City), Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City), and Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[44] Russian sources claimed on September 28 that unspecified elements of the Russian 150th Motorized Rifle Division (8th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) continue to fight in the Marinka area.[45]

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