Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine: Lessons Learned

More than a month into the conflict, two conclusions can be drawn

Image credit: Reuters

We’re now over one month into Russia’s invasion of its peaceful neighbor Ukraine, and although the situation is very far from clear, there seem to be some things we can begin to say about the battlefield.

While Russia is well-known for throwing poorly-equipped conscripts into the front lines as a cheap way to soak up opposition bullets and other materiel, and while it’s certainly true that a great many Russian conscripts have been thrown into this invasion — and paid a terrible price — it doesn’t seem to be the case that the Russian military is acting according to a long-term strategic plan. There is no evidence to support the idea that all the destroyed armor is Soviet-era junk and in fact as best as we can tell from confirmed visual evidence, Russia has lost meaningful percentages of more modern equipment along with nearly antique elements such as guns on railway cars that seem to date from the Great Patriotic War. So although Russian military leaders have no shortage of cynicism and will sacrifice conscripts readily in order to achieve their objectives, the “cannon fodder” hypothesis in which all the best units and best equipment are being held in reserve now seems untenable.

Instead, we have what seems to be a mashup.

Some Russian generals may genuinely have believed, along with their Great Tzar himself, that Ukraine would fall effortlessly and that overwhelming Russian superiority in numbers of personnel and equipment would result in a rapid surrender. Although the Russian military is not organized around principles that make blitzkrieg-style invasions feasible, over-confidence and the imperative to do whatever Putin ordered may have led to a hope that the invasion would take only fifteen to forty-five days. So the battlegroups comprise an unwieldy mixture of poorly-trained conscripts along with more professional elements, and mix reasonably modern equipment alongside Soviet-era clunkers. Sheer weight of numbers seems to have been the guiding principle.

The invasion started well, with missile and rocket strikes degrading nearly all of Ukraine’s radar and air defense systems, and with rapid advances on key cities from staging…