War in Ukraine: what lessons can be learned from the operations?

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War in Ukraine: what lessons can Russia draw from the operations?

The war in Ukraine is also a war in the air, and although DSI has already returned to the subject on several occasions, some questions remain unanswered. This is particularly true of the performance of a Russian air force which, on paper, enjoys comparative advantages in terms of both quality and quantity. If Ukraine's ability to maintain air operations has been the focus of attention and a source of lessons, what lessons can be drawn from Russia's actions this time?

The war in Ukraine can be analysed in terms of different phases, each with its own dynamic. The first saw a massive deployment in the south and east of Ukraine, as well as the attempt to take Kiev (February-April 2022).

The second was the Russian withdrawal from the north of the country and concentration on the Donbass (April-June).

The Ukrainian counter-offensive (late August-November) was preceded by a preparation phase, particularly in the south (June-August). By the end of November, just over 50% of the areas taken by Russia since February had been recaptured. During this phase, Russia launches a strategic air campaign against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which will then be weakened from February 2023 onwards.

In the fourth phase, from late November 2022 to April 2023, Russia leads a winter offensive, which has largely run out of steam by mid-April. At this point, Russia goes on the defensive and Ukraine, which has used the winter to continue its force generation and reconditioning, prepares its counter-offensive.

Mutual neutralisation

During the first phase, the VKS relied on around 350 aircraft at bases close to the theatre. They initially focused on destroying fixed Ukrainian SAM sites, 75% of which were destroyed within the first 48 hours. More than 100 radar sites, depots, bases and firing positions were attacked. They then sought to gain air superiority at a time when the Ukrainian air defence system was being dispersed and reorganised, relying mainly on its fighter aircraft. Contrary to initial estimates, the VKS adapted fairly quickly to the changing situation in the battle zones, at least up to a certain level. From the third day onwards, the tactic of a single aircraft striking a pre-designated target was changed, with several aircraft escorted by fighters and aircraft equipped with anti-radar missiles leading the operations. When illuminated by Ukrainian batteries, the planes and helicopters adopt a very low-flying profile, which in turn makes them vulnerable to MANPADS.

In the first few weeks, Russia's inability to gain air superiority and cover the axes of land advance gave the Ukrainian air force freedom of manoeuvre, which it took advantage of. The Ukrainian air force carried out 20 to 40 sorties a day - all missions combined - compared with 200 to 300 for the VKS, around 140 of which were actions in the Ukrainian depths, whether air superiority or attack missions, including several air-to-air engagements. From the tenth day onwards, Russia reorganised its air superiority system, using its A-50 advanced air detection aircraft. At the same time, the deployment of its ground-based electronic warfare systems had an impact on the communications of Ukrainian pilots, while the deployment of SAM batteries created no-fly zones. As a result, Ukrainian deep engagements are gradually being reduced, with aircraft also having to fly at very low altitude. In the south of Ukraine, there were more Russian engagements.

 

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In the second phase of the war, after the withdrawal from the Kiev region and the concentration of Russian forces in the Donbass, Russia was faced with a denser and rearticulated Ukrainian air defence. At the same time, the stabilisation of the front lines allowed Russia to deploy its SAM batteries, but also to increase the density of its electronic warfare systems, up to 10 for a 20km section of front, affecting the navigation and communications of the Ukrainian air force. Russian air actions were essentially of two types:

- deep strikes using cruise missiles fired from Russian airspace. Between February and May, around 180 AS-4 Kitchen (Kh-22/32) and AS-15 Kent (Kh-555) missiles were launched. One exception was the strikes on Marioupol, carried out in particular by Tu-22M Backfire aircraft dropping unguided bombs, including while operating in the engagement envelope of the Ukrainian SAMs;

- VKS air activity during the Battle of the Donbass. The main tactic is to engage four aircraft flying at medium altitude in order to jam the Ukrainian SAMs or launch anti-radar missiles. Under this cover, two other aircraft then dropped unguided weapons on their target, possibly after "spray and pray" firing, with fairly random effects.

Russian air activity then reached its peak, with 300 sorties a day in March. From the start of the war to mid-May, the VKS carried out around 20,000 sorties, all missions combined, but only around 3,000 were flown over Ukraine - many of them strikes on Marioupol. Later, General Surovikin, in charge of operations in Ukraine from October 2022 to 11 January 2023, would state that 34,000 sorties had been carried out between 23 February and 17 October - a figure that was probably overestimated. By mid-April, faced with Ukrainian SAMs, Russian aircraft were only engaging beyond the front lines in exceptional circumstances, and if they carried out actions to interdict the battlefield, it was by firing Kh-29s from areas controlled by Russia. However, Ukraine cannot do any better, as Russia is also deploying its SAM batteries.

The third phase of the war saw a relatively small number of air-to-ground engagements, apart from actions in depth using cruise missiles, as the very structure of the Ukrainian counter-offensives, which were diffuse and covered by air defences, did not lend itself well to the use of aircraft. The same applies to Kherson, where there is little Russian air activity, but more Ukrainian activity, supported by anti-radar actions using AGM-88 HARMs on Russian SAMs. In December 2022, Russian air activity collapsed. British intelligence now reported only "dozens" of daily sorties. Since then, Russian air-to-surface actions have been fairly limited, whether to the north (Svatove-Kreminna) or to the east and south-west (Soledar-Vuhledar). The Russian winter offensive has thus received little support from the air, in a context where both the Russian and Ukrainian SAMs are creating interdiction bubbles leading to a cautious attitude on the part of both air forces.

 

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Under-utilised capabilities?

As of 23 February, Russia had a clear numerical superiority over Ukraine, with 350 aircraft in the vicinity of the theatre, while Ukraine had around 140 Su-27s, MiG-29s, Su-24s and Su-25s. The Russian superiority is also qualitative. The Su-30SM and Su-35 have far superior radar capabilities to the Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29, and are armed with more modern AA-12 missiles capable of firing beyond 100km. Russia also has A-50 Mainstay advanced aerial detection aircraft, which Ukraine does not have - although it probably benefits from the support of NATO aircraft; but as these operate outside its airspace, this limits the establishment of in-depth situational awareness. In such a context, how can we explain the Russian under-performance and the establishment, fairly quickly in the course of the war, of a situation of mutual neutralisation?

Back to basics
Several factors come into play here, starting with the general level of personnel. According to Ukrainian assessments, the VKS entered the conflict with fewer than 100 pilots fully trained to Russian standards, due to a lack of flying hours and unit exercises. Training in the use of precision munitions was also limited. Instructors at the training schools were also mobilised for operations, with consequences for the training of future generations of pilots. The practice of assigning the most experienced crews to the most perilous missions increased the effects of attrition on the structure of the air force and its general level of experience. The professional discipline of the teams of pilots and mechanics also raises questions, as the carcasses of several downed Russian aircraft have been found with protective covers still covering their sensors. Added to this is the difficulty of meeting aircraft maintenance requirements during operations.

Another factor is directly linked to the density of Ukrainian SAM systems, particularly mobile ones. Apart from the fact that Russia only eliminated a fraction of Kiev's SA-10s and SA-11s in the first few days, their large number worked in Ukraine's favour. While Russia partially neutralised some of the systems, notably through electronic warfare measures, in the early days of the war, Ukraine also seems to have managed to bypass many of them later on. During the first few weeks, Russia also had to reduce the intensity of its electronic warfare, to avoid jamming its own systems, in a context of compartmentalisation between units that were poorly coordinated and did not talk to each other. By early March, the Ukrainian SAMs had clearly become more effective. Russia has also deployed its own systems, including S-400s, which have produced surprising results, sometimes engaging Ukrainian aircraft flying at very low altitude from long distances.

Another factor is doctrinal and has been important at various levels. Firstly, for the SEAD (Suppression of enemy air defence) missions, which would have enabled us to be more effective in the face of Ukrainian air defence. With no specialised aircraft and relatively few ISR systems to counter Kiev's tactics - including turning on radars at the last minute - the missiles proved rather effective. But, above all, the VKS did not anticipate their needs and did not adapt their systems and training accordingly before the war, leaving the elimination of SAMs to ground forces whose deep strike capabilities were required elsewhere. On the other hand, in terms of interdiction and close-air support, doctrine has changed little since Chechnya, failing to incorporate the lessons learned from the engagement in Syria.

 

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An organic C2 problem

The overall coordination of commitments is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in understanding the underperformance of VKS. This proved to be difficult in several respects. Firstly, in terms of the technical and tactical aspects of the missions. In the north, during the first phase of the war, the information provided by the Podlet-K1 radars positioned in Russia could not be exploited by the operators on board the Il-22 Coot-B air command posts responsible for directing the Russian air superiority patrols towards the Ukrainian aircraft. In the southern zone, only two or three daily sorties of A-50 Mainstay aircraft were carried out, whose effectiveness was limited by the Ukrainian tactics of flying at very low altitude - on which training had focused - but also by the vulnerability of these aircraft to electronic warfare.

On the other hand, the articulation of tactical and operational plans - and, beyond that, of command and strike plans - was influenced by organic choices. In the first case, Russian air operations were directly subordinate to the military districts, each with its own area of responsibility. As far as air superiority was concerned, this limited the establishment of an integrated air defence system including long-range SAMs, with information passing first to the district HQs. On the other hand, the Russian-held zones were subdivided into eight sectors in which two Flankers or two MiG-31s were operating almost continuously, apparently with some success - but without the benefit of in-flight refuelling which could have made operations more efficient. These flights represented a significant number of sorties, mobilising under-calibrated maintenance resources.

The subordination of the VKS to the military districts has also had consequences in terms of their overall view of the theatre and its approaches. Without the equivalent of a CAOC (Combined air operations centre), the VKS have seen their freedom of action reduced, including with regard to the attacks by Ukrainian Tu-141/143 drones on the Engels-2 and Dyagilevo bases on 6 December, which were not taken into account by the air defence. The attack on an A-50 at the Machulishchy base on 26 February follows a different logic, as the micro-drone that dropped the payload on the aircraft was flown close to the base. The drone attack on the Kremlin on 4 May remains open to speculation as to the means used and the actor who carried it out. It should also be noted that the numerous drone attacks against positions in or near Crimea have not been systematically detected or dealt with.

The choice of subordination to land forces also had an impact on interdiction and close air support operations. By giving priority to direct support to army units, the chain of command chosen did not allow air operations to be carried out autonomously and by pooling the aircraft available for each district. In addition, the overall effectiveness of air-to-ground operations also suffered from a lack of BDA (Battle Damage Assessment). In practice, during their debriefing, Russian pilots would indicate whether or not they had hit their target - with the risk that the desire to please their superiors would lead them to lie - and their information would be confirmed by satellite images. In this way, targets that were not destroyed or only slightly damaged were not attacked again, a situation that led to an overestimation of the success of air operations.

 

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Systemic actions

The approach in the theatre could not therefore be systemic, and when it was - the campaign in the early days against the air defences or the strategic air campaign against the energy infrastructures - it was carried out by the General Staff in Moscow, and by the General Staff in St Petersburg for the strikes from the sea. Two distinct air campaigns were therefore conducted: a systemic one, and a tactical one, fragmented between the districts. This arrangement is not bad in itself, but it has proved ill-suited to the capabilities actually available to the various HQs concerned, particularly in the ISR field, where the allocation of relatively meagre resources has been problematic and has failed to generate a dynamic kill chain. However, the bulk of Russian intelligence did not come from military resources so much as from the development of a HUMINT network in Ukraine in the years leading up to the war.

But, here too, the organic arrangements adopted posed problems and did not provide a real capacity to strike deep into sensitive target areas. In the first few weeks, the information gathered by the Russian officers in charge was sent back to Moscow to be processed in the Akatsya command system and integrated into a strike plan for the military districts that ordered the missions. This process often took more than 48 hours. Paradoxically, the Russian cruise missiles showed excellent performance in terms of accuracy - when electronic warfare measures were not taken - but the targets had since disappeared. Subsequently, Ukrainian counter-intelligence efforts paid off, reducing Russia's ability to provide intelligence in depth, which was not compensated for by the forces' ISR resources.

Beyond the first few weeks, the long-range strikes saw a series of changes in priorities, indicating the absence of a unified targeting concept. They concentrated on Ukrainian government buildings, communications towers and defence industries, but here too the civilian and military command centres were dispersed, and there were too many targets linked to communications networks. It was only from June onwards that deep strikes were concentrated on militarily relevant targets: railway hubs, refineries and fuel depots. But by then the Ukrainian air defence had been reorganised and more active, and achieved better interception rates. At the same time, many cruise missiles had already been fired and Russia began to use more and more AS-4s, which were less accurate.

In the end, Russia's potential for deep strikes was squandered on modes of action, each with its own coherence, but which seemed more the result of immediate contingencies than of a coherent doctrine. From October onwards, the logic changed again with the attack on energy infrastructures, with Iranian Shahed-136 drones compensating for the reduction in cruise missile stocks, which were only partially replaced by the production of new devices. The very choice of electricity grids, undoubtedly the most resilient of all, also demonstrates a failure to take account of historical lessons in air strategy. From April onwards, the main focus of targeting changed once again, to cities. In itself, this mode of action can only produce one militarily relevant effect: forcing Ukraine to fire a large number of anti-aircraft missiles and to keep its anti-aircraft batteries close to the cities, even though it will need them to cover its counter-offensives.

A general lack of adaptability

In retrospect, the VKS entered the war in Ukraine ill-prepared - which again lends credence to the hypothesis of a very short war, the major effect of which would have been to massify the Russian presence on Ukraine's borders, the first engagements being enough to see it collapse militarily. At the time of writing (8 May), the big question is Russia's ability to learn the lessons of the war, while the VKS still have, on paper, a combat potential that would be useful in countering the announced Ukrainian counter-offensive. However, up until now, the adaptability of the forces has proved important when it has not been hampered by organic subordination. This cannot compensate for the lack of training and maintenance or the shortage of pilots, but it can have a real effect on a counter-offensive...

 

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War in Ukraine: what lessons can Russia draw from the operations?

The war in Ukraine is also a war in the air, and although DSI has already returned to the subject on several occasions, some questions remain unanswered. This is particularly true of the performance of a Russian air force which, on paper, enjoys comparative advantages in terms of both quality and quantity. If Ukraine's ability to maintain air operations has been the focus of attention and a source of lessons, what lessons can be drawn from Russia's actions this time?

The war in Ukraine can be analysed in terms of different phases, each with its own dynamic. The first saw a massive deployment in the south and east of Ukraine, as well as the attempt to take Kiev (February-April 2022).

The second was the Russian withdrawal from the north of the country and concentration on the Donbass (April-June).

The Ukrainian counter-offensive (late August-November) was preceded by a preparation phase, particularly in the south (June-August). By the end of November, just over 50% of the areas taken by Russia since February had been recaptured. During this phase, Russia launches a strategic air campaign against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which will then be weakened from February 2023 onwards.

In the fourth phase, from late November 2022 to April 2023, Russia leads a winter offensive, which has largely run out of steam by mid-April. At this point, Russia goes on the defensive and Ukraine, which has used the winter to continue its force generation and reconditioning, prepares its counter-offensive.

Mutual neutralisation

During the first phase, the VKS relied on around 350 aircraft at bases close to the theatre. They initially focused on destroying fixed Ukrainian SAM sites, 75% of which were destroyed within the first 48 hours. More than 100 radar sites, depots, bases and firing positions were attacked. They then sought to gain air superiority at a time when the Ukrainian air defence system was being dispersed and reorganised, relying mainly on its fighter aircraft. Contrary to initial estimates, the VKS adapted fairly quickly to the changing situation in the battle zones, at least up to a certain level. From the third day onwards, the tactic of a single aircraft striking a pre-designated target was changed, with several aircraft escorted by fighters and aircraft equipped with anti-radar missiles leading the operations. When illuminated by Ukrainian batteries, the planes and helicopters adopt a very low-flying profile, which in turn makes them vulnerable to MANPADS.

In the first few weeks, Russia's inability to gain air superiority and cover the axes of land advance gave the Ukrainian air force freedom of manoeuvre, which it took advantage of. The Ukrainian air force carried out 20 to 40 sorties a day - all missions combined - compared with 200 to 300 for the VKS, around 140 of which were actions in the Ukrainian depths, whether air superiority or attack missions, including several air-to-air engagements. From the tenth day onwards, Russia reorganised its air superiority system, using its A-50 advanced air detection aircraft. At the same time, the deployment of its ground-based electronic warfare systems had an impact on the communications of Ukrainian pilots, while the deployment of SAM batteries created no-fly zones. As a result, Ukrainian deep engagements are gradually being reduced, with aircraft also having to fly at very low altitude. In the south of Ukraine, there were more Russian engagements.

I'd argue the Russian ground forces failed the air force and Kremlin failed the ground forces. The air force did well the first few days, but the ground forces were too small to take the initiative.

I find it weird that the Russians did not develop a robust comm system either. I would really like to know why they failed here.

A lot of sorties, but mostly useless after the first few weeks.

 

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Guerre en Ukraine : le rôle de l’artillerie
War in Ukraine: the role of artillery

25 February 2022

Since 2014, the war in eastern Ukraine has shown a paradoxical pattern: while the Russian, separatist and Ukrainian forces have systems that favour mobility, the configuration of the fighting seems more like a replay of the First World War's war of positions, in which artillery plays an essential role. What lessons can we learn from this?

While Russia has been able to play both sides of the strategic grammar - in terms of kinetics and influence - the focus on "non-linear warfare" and on what has no doubt been improperly called "hybrid warfare" has undoubtedly caused observers to miss the innovations in the "historical" field of combat. Indeed, while Russia has been able to fight through proxies - the separatist groups - it has also been able to evolve its modes of action, with real success. From this point of view, the war in eastern Ukraine is also, and perhaps above all, a conventional war, fought with capabilities that are sometimes more advanced than those of NATO forces.

The central role of artillery

Russia has set up powerful tactical groups in the form of joint battalions. Their typical composition includes a tank company, three mechanised infantry companies, an anti-tank company, two or three artillery batteries (guns or multiple rocket launchers) and two air defence batteries. This structure," notes Major Amos Fox of the US Army, "provides greater firepower than any Ukrainian or even American brigade. These groups also benefit from strong drone and electronic warfare support. Electronic warfare makes it possible to locate opposing forces, disrupt their communications and disorganise them, but also to protect themselves - we'll come back to this later. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), for their part, provide the visual location of opposing forces and are used for intelligence gathering.

This logic is more widely applied in the Russian forces, where a number of brigades have been reorganised with a greater proportion of artillery. Swedish analysts point out that, when facing Finland, the Russian brigades include an armoured battalion, three motorised battalions, an electronic warfare company, three batteries, including one with multiple rocket launchers, and a large number of micro-drones. These are used to locate opposing forces, enabling artillery fire to be engaged less than three minutes after detection. The armoured battalion and the three motorised battalions only intervene as a last resort for exploitation, while the electronic warfare systems operate permanently to locate the forces, but above all to jam their communications.

Whether in the case of the tactical groups in the Donbass or the brigades on the Kola Peninsula, it is the combination of artillery/electronic warfare/drones that makes the Russian system so original. This "reconnaissance/strike complex" - to use the words of Marshal Ogarkov in his day - is based on a rustic vision: once detected by drones, opposing forces are brutally dealt with by artillery. Electronic warfare paralyses the adversary, reducing its ability to manoeuvre and maintain organic coherence. As a result, they are less agile and more vulnerable to attack. In comparison, the Russian system remains agile: not only is the threat dealt with, but infantry and armour remain available. While they act as a "reserve", in the second line of the battle group, they also give it freedom of manoeuvre if the need arises.

Using artillery as a "front-line weapon" requires good organic integration. De facto, all the image feeds from the drones are sent directly to the battle group HQ, which in turn orders fire. UAVs are just as essential to this vision. In Russia, light armoured vehicles (such as the BRDM-2) or tanks have historically been used for reconnaissance and target location. However, the geographical and politico-strategic configuration of operations in the Donbass does not necessarily lend itself to their use. Micro-UAVs have the advantage of discretion - visual, auditory, radar - and their on-board sensors and use of the third dimension compensate advantageously for the non-use of armoured vehicles. To this must be added the use of the separatists themselves, who are also likely to pass on information to the tactical groups. While drones play a central role in detecting and locating fire, they also have a BDA (Battlefield Damage Assessment) function, making it possible to ensure that strikes have achieved their objectives - and possibly to launch new ones.

A return to siege warfare?

This rationality is itself coupled with a logic of siege warfare, with Russian and separatist forces encircling the Ukrainians as soon as they could. A good example of this combination of systems was seen on 11 July 2014, a few months after the separatists had launched operations, and as a group of Ukrainian brigades prepared to advance into the Zelenopillya region. Drones began flying over the Ukrainian FUP (Forming Up Place), while electronic jamming actions were carried out. Soon after the arrival of the drones, Russian artillery fire was unleashed, killing around thirty Ukrainians and, more importantly, destroying the equipment of two battalions.

At the beginning of August 2014, another emblematic action took place in Ilovaïsk. This town of around 15,000 inhabitants is located on the lines of communication linking the Republic of Donetsk to Russia, so Ukraine committed around eight battalions in order to take the town. At the end of August, several Russian tactical groups surrounded the town - and the Ukrainian troops - before the use of drones and artillery. Every Ukrainian attempt to escape was a failure, leading to a stalemate whose political translation was the first Minsk Agreement (September 2014). The latter allowed Kiev forces to leave the city peacefully, but Russian forces opened fire, killing around 1,000 Ukrainians and destroying large volumes of equipment. A similar situation occurred during the second battle for Donetsk airport, from September 2014 to January 2015. Here too, the Ukrainians entered an area that was then sealed off by Russian tactical groups and separatists, who gradually tightened the noose using a combination of drones and artillery, before clearing the area on foot, with the infantry advancing under cover of tanks. The Ukrainian forces lost over 200 dead and more than 500 wounded.

In January 2015, the battle of Debaltseve, a town of around 25,000 inhabitants, held by Ukrainian forces (around 8,000 men) but positioned in a salient, also reflected this logic. Seeking to encircle the town with around 10,000 men, the Russians and separatists then massively fired their artillery at the Ukrainian forces and the town's infrastructure, while cutting off its electricity, water and gas supplies for around ten days. As a result of these actions, nearly 8,000 civilians fled the city, with a further 6,000 killed. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and hundreds more captured or missing. The violence of the battle eventually led to renewed diplomatic efforts and the signing of the Minsk II agreements in mid-February 2015.

But here too, the configuration obtained favoured the Russian forces. In practical terms, the agreements involved, in addition to a ceasefire, the withdrawal of all heavy weapons equidistant from the front lines, so that 100mm calibre weapons would be 50km apart, "multiple rocket launchers" 70km apart and heavier multiple rocket launchers (which are expressly detailed in the agreement: Tornado-S, Uragan, Smerch as well as SS-21 surface-to-surface missiles) 150km apart. These agreements will be violated on a daily basis. On the one hand, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), which is responsible for verifying their application, has shown, notably on the basis of images produced by S-100 drones, the frequent use of artillery on both sides in areas from which it was supposed to be excluded. On the other hand, Ukrainian and separatist forces were engaged in a war of position and infiltration - again leading to engagements, this time on a daily basis.

The fact remains that while Minsk II enabled violence to be kept at a relatively low level, it was open to criticism in other respects. Firstly, because of the shift by the belligerents towards "trench warfare". Secondly, because repeated violations using artillery may have been carried out at the right time, without really being countered by sanctions. Finally, and more problematically, Minsk II said nothing about drones or electronic warfare systems, even though they were key to the effectiveness of the Russian artillery. Once the targets have been located by the drones, there is nothing to prevent the batteries from raiding areas where they are supposed to be absent, before they withdraw.

 

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Electronic warfare as a manoeuvring factor

While the combination of UAVs and artillery is, in the final analysis, no more than a reformulation of the classic "observer/battery" combination, the uses of electronic - or even cyber-electronic - warfare need to be clarified, because it plays a major role in the effectiveness of the Russian reconnaissance/fragment complex. As we have seen, jamming the enemy's communications is an important aspect: jamming means destructuring the enemy's system and making it lose its coherence. Less agile, it is less manoeuvrable, and is therefore more easily targeted. There are other aspects to consider. Russian electronic warfare has also been used to locate Ukrainian forces, with sensors positioned on vehicles or drones, such as the Orlan-10. In practice, the cyber-electronics side of the system was also used to detect a series of Ukrainian batteries of D-30 howitzers. A Ukrainian officer had developed an application to facilitate firing calculations, which may have been infected by the Russian group Fancy Bear. Its users could then have transmitted a rough location of their positions, which would have enabled the Russians to focus other means of detection to obtain their precise location. However, this hypothesis has not been confirmed.

Another function of the electronic warfare seen in the Donbass was to protect Russian forces from Ukrainian counter-battery fire. The SPR-2M RTUT-BM, installed on an MT-LB chassis, was seen in the Donbass as early as August 2016. It can remotely detonate or deactivate shell and rocket fuses by radio transmission. The system is said to offer protection over an area of 50 hectares and can detonate shells at an altitude of 200 or 300 m. The SPR-2M is a modernisation of the SPR-2, to which VHS communications jamming functions have been added. Electronic warfare can also play a role, still in counter-battery mode, by jamming radars. Russia's focus on artillery quickly prompted Kiev to look for suitable radars. While the United States has delivered a (meagre) total of four AN/TPQ-36 Firefinders in 2015 and 2019, Ukraine has developed the 1L220UK, a variant of the Russian Zoopark.

Electronic warfare has another defensive function, in the search/location of Ukrainian counter-battery radars as a security measure. It is obviously not the only one - the great attention paid to improving the tactical mobility of the forces and the placing in reserve of more than 99% of the towed howitzers are noteworthy - but it is important in the tactical scheme, paralysing the Ukrainians or forcing them to come closer and thus drawing them into a deadly attritionist spiral. At the same time, Russia continued to develop its own counter-battery capabilities, enabling it to reduce enemy advantages. It has thus deployed the 1L219M Zoopark-1M from 2017, the 1RL232-2M Snar-10M1 (10), as well as, previously, a shorter-range portable system, the 1L271 Aistyonok, which was observed in the Donbass. Russia also completed trials of the 1B75 Penicillin at the end of 2018, a passive system using seismic, acoustic and IR sensors, which is due to enter service this year. It seems that some combat brigades are organically equipped with these systems.

Finally, electronic warfare also has the function of protecting the communications of the Russian forces: the "reconnaissance/attack complex" owes its effectiveness to the fluidity of transmissions. During the operations in the Donbass, the "detection/hit" cycle seems in some cases to have lasted no more than three minutes, thanks to real-time transmissions of images captured by drones. Moscow has already set up KTK (Kompleksnyi Tekhnicheskii Kontrol) units, one of whose missions is to control emissions by managing the electromagnetic emission signatures of units and systems in order to increase the security of forces. These units also manage the risks associated with communications, particularly by soldiers, via smartphones - a task described as "information assurance".

Russian technological choices

The artillery/drone/(cyber)electronic warfare trinity is actually more complex. Lester Grau mentions the Strelets system, a portable command and control system in the form of a rugged tablet running Linux. It went into service in 2011 and can interface with a wide variety of sensors, including drones. The Strelets enable a soldier to plot an enemy position on the system's digital maps and transmit the information in real time to the command post. The system is equipped with a GLONASS receiver, as well as an inertial unit for working in degraded conditions. The Strelets could communicate with each other, acting as relays all the way up to higher echelons, and be integrated into existing communications networks. The system would have been available in different versions adapted to soldiers or section, company, battalion or brigade commanders. Initially designed to direct artillery fire, Strelets also appears to have been adapted to direct naval support fire.

Taken together, these developments suggest that Russia is moving towards a Western-style military system, favouring high technology and combat at ever greater safety distances, within an infocentric framework. Its efforts on the 2S35 Koalitsyia, with virtually unprecedented ranges, are a case in point. However, several observers note that Russian operations continue to favour saturation rather than precision firing. In fact, while Moscow can advertise its precision systems, such as the Krasnopol laser-guided shell, the reality of operations in Ukraine - and of ammunition orders - shows that priority is still given to conventional, unguided ammunition. Less costly, they produce significant effects in the Russian reconnaissance/firefighting complex: precise because of the complex nature of the operation itself, strikes are intended above all for brutal annihilation, with the corollary effect of demoralising the adversary.

 

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Guerre et « point culminant de la victoire ». Clausewitz en Ukraine
War and the "climax of victory". Clausewitz in Ukraine

In the year since the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, a number of observers and analysts have already highlighted how the concepts and reasoning developed by the famous Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, and set out in his treatise On War, make it possible to understand various aspects of the course of the conflict, even if Clausewitz's thinking, being neither descriptive, normative nor doctrinal, and envisaging war as a "chameleon", is likely to shed light on many other forms of war.

These include the difference between the ascent to extremes as a mechanical logic of war reduced to a pure duel between two wills, and the various limitations of this mechanism in a reality where the duellists are constrained by a range of factors: the centre of gravity, the frictions and fog of war, the advantages of defence over attack, the central place of moral forces, the "astonishing trinity" or war as the simultaneous expression of passions, the interplay of probabilities and chance, and rationality.

The climax

The notion of the culmination of victory is also sometimes evoked, but more often than not to shed light on strictly operational considerations, whereas the concept as proposed by Clausewitz is as much a matter of operational strategy as it is of strategy in general, i.e. the articulation of the conduct of a conflict by various means and ways with the political objectives pursued. In this respect, the notion of the culmination of victory can be used as a tool to shed light on the ebb and flow of Russian operational offensives, the Ukrainian defence and counter-offensive and their limits, as well as to reflect on the Russian decision of February 2022, if we are willing to consider that this was not a first offensive, but the continuation of the one carried out in other forms in 2014.

This decision has often been described as irrational, not least because the Russian army did not have enough troops to conquer and hold Ukrainian territory. But it is doubtful that this was Vladimir Putin's objective and that the initial plan corresponded to what subsequently happened. If we reason on the basis that what had been anticipated on the Russian side was a rapid collapse of the regime after a relatively short military operation destroying a large part of the Ukrainian defence potential and having a decisive effect on opposing morale, this decision may well have been a miscalculation without being irrational.

But let's be clear about the culmination of victory. Clausewitz's reasoning was based on the conquest of enemy territory. The military capabilities of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were not the same as those we have today: Clausewitz did not have air weapons or nuclear deterrence, for example, but the essence of his analysis is not affected by this if we integrate the new elements and their potential consequences into our understanding of later situations. In war, then, "the victor is not always in a position to completely overwhelm his adversary. The curve of victory most of the time reaches a climax", which means that in war you can pass through a point of success that would be the best possible victory in context, only to pass beyond it and find yourself in a situation of relative defeat or complete defeat.

Clausewitz derived this statement from historical experience and then attempted to explain the inner workings of this phenomenon in an analytical and generic way. If we want to put the idea in the simplest and most general terms possible, the culmination of victory is the moment when an offensive or counter-offensive movement produces the most positive effects relative to its negative effects, given what is at stake in the conflict, while its overcoming produces more negative effects than positive ones.

Each victory by a conqueror in a campaign is the result of physical and moral superiority and increases his ascendancy over the enemy, which is why, logically, he seeks it. However, the consequences of victory are not unequivocal for him: some strengthen his offensive, others weaken it. Clausewitz lists the main factors of reinforcement and weakening in interaction and concludes that the latter are almost systematically dominant.

We will confine ourselves to mentioning the latter, because the idea that victory can weaken is counter-intuitive: the invader needs troops to besiege, take or guard enemy strongholds, while the defender who loses ground adds the troops who withdraw to his forces; he has to occupy hostile terrain and the length of his strategic flanks increases; the further the invader advances, the further he distances himself from his resources; lines of communication are stretched; the peril incurred by the defender mobilises other powers to his aid; a surge of effort spurs on the defender in danger, while the victorious invader can relax his efforts.

"All this contributes to burdening each additional step of an advancing army; unless it enjoys exceptional superiority, it will see its room for manoeuvre increasingly restricted [...]", which does not mean that the opponent will not give in before this last margin of superiority disappears.

Finally, there inevitably comes a turning point in the war when the offensive movement is transformed into defence, which is the goal of every campaign. "Overstepping this goal is not only a pointless waste that adds nothing to victory, but a detriment that will invite backlash." For while defence is the strongest form of warfare, this shift from attack to defence for the attacker does not most of the time transform him into the stronger party.

"As long as the invader is advancing, he is still outnumbered; since defence (which is more effective than attack) begins when the attacker has exhausted his momentum, he should have no fear of gradually becoming the weaker party. And yet, if history is anything to go by, this is exactly what happens: the reversals take place precisely when the attack comes to an end and is transformed into a defence". The contradiction is only apparent: the defence that begins after the climax of the attack is not planned and organised, does not have popular support, and is "infected" by the spirit of the offensive.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

Overtaking

But then, if going beyond the equilibrium point where an attacker would have optimal chances of success if he stopped to take a defensive position has negative consequences for him, why does history offer such often examples of crossing the high point of victory? The explanations provided by Clausewitz for what he calls an “error” are essentially psychological and intellectual. From a psychological point of view, Clausewitz puts forward two explanations, one general, the other specific.

Like anyone whose mind is set in a certain direction, the attacker can be carried away by his offensive momentum and become insensitive to the reasons that would justify a pause or a stop. He can also be driven by a particular psychological motivation, aggressive and conquering, which pushes him to constantly move forward and encourages him to shy away from defense, to rest or to use ways and means other than violence to achieve its objectives.

It is therefore essential to have the climax of victory in mind when preparing war plans and when making the decision to engage in them. But the intellectual operation of determining the climax in advance is particularly complex. There are so many interacting factors to take into account and elements that will depend on the material, technical and moral reactions of the enemy that the general or head of state cannot “know”, he must “guess” . And to do this, even if Clausewitz does not mention it, intelligence, its reliability and the accuracy of its analysis are fundamental.

In particular, it is a matter of “guessing whether the enemy army will coalesce around its core at the first shock, showing increasing cohesion, or like a Bologna glass flask, burst into pieces at the first scratch. Guess the weakening or paralysis caused in the enemy by the exhaustion of certain resources and the interruption of certain lines of communication. Guess whether the stinging pain of the wound he inflicts on the enemy will make him faint, or on the contrary, like a wounded bull, turn his rage to incandescence. Guess whether the other powers will be frightened or indignant, whether this or that alliance will be made or undone. » If judgment is not buried under the complexity and confusion of the problem, the fear of danger and responsibilities sometimes gets the better of it. “This is why the vast majority of generals will prefer to stay short of the goal rather than risk getting too close to it, and why the great courageous and the great daring will often go too far and also miss their goal. Only he who accomplishes a lot with few means truly achieves the goal. »

We could not resist quoting this wonderful passage without cutting or summarizing it as it resonates with astonishing accuracy for analyzing the Russian decision of February 2022. Once again, if we want to interpret it as a second Russia's offensive movement in Ukraine after the successful operations of 2014 – strictly from the point of view of effectiveness and efficiency in relation to the intended goals –, as well as as a military movement which was not designed and planned to confront the reality of the situation as it gradually revealed itself. The fundamental problem was not so much that Russian forces were insufficient to invade and hold Ukraine, but that the aim was probably not the military occupation of the country and its outright absorption by Russia, but the establishment of a new regime subordinate to Moscow, to its views and interests after a dislocation of the army and a rapid collapse of the regime.

The fundamental problem is that, from all the points of view listed by Clausewitz above, the Russian anticipations turned out to be wrong – honesty obliges us to point out that the surprise was shared by “the West”. The national spirit and resistance of the Ukrainians, as well as the skills of their army, have been dramatically underestimated while the skills of the Russian army have simultaneously been overestimated. The reactions of the United States, the EU and NATO, in multiple dimensions of the confrontation, have also been underestimated.

The Russian offensive movement has strengthened opposing partnerships and alliances, their cohesion, rather than leading to a wait-and-see attitude or the dispersion of support, even if, here and there within liberal democracies, voices are speaking out to reduce, or even cease, diplomatic, military and financial support for Ukraine. All these errors caused the human, material and diplomatic costs of the enterprise to soar compared to those which had initially been envisaged and forced the system to be reorganized after a disastrous first phase of war for Russia, and probably also to reassess the objectives. Ultimately, and even if the war is not yet over and Russia can achieve success, the costs of this war for it are already disproportionate given the objectives that it can reasonably achieve from now on. . Because “only he who accomplishes a lot with few means truly achieves the goal.”

 

[BMD]

Lesson: When NATO tells you not to invade a country, you don't invade it.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

An extract of:

Exclusive Interview With Ukraine’s Spy Boss From His D.C. Hotel Room​

TWZ: I want to talk a little bit about the ongoing counteroffensive. I know that you're not the general in charge of land forces, but as the eyes and ears of the Ukrainian military, what’s your assessment? Do you still believe that Ukraine will retake Crimea this year or will a counteroffensive push on until next year?

KB: Our counteroffensive operation started at the beginning of summer and is still ongoing. It hasn't stopped. And as you've rightly said I'm not the commander-in-chief of the General Staff. That is why questions about the tempo or progress of the counteroffensive operation should be addressed to the General Staff. But speaking of Crimea, you could not have missed that since the middle of August, there's been a certain intensification going on with regard to Crimea, and that might indirectly give you a hint about the answer to your question.

So first of all, the fact itself is that we're engaging the military infrastructure and military targets in occupied Crimea and the occupier’s infrastructure. If we're going deeper into strikes against the air defense system, it's more complicated here. First of all, the air defense systems themselves are very costly equipment and it takes a lot of time to produce those and Russian flags those systems because all this inventory is currently engaged in fighting against Ukraine and also in protection of Moscow. They've taken away air defenses from everywhere else.
That is why, naturally, when we engage in another and another air defense battalion of the Russian military, they need to think about where they can pull those systems from and where are they able to tolerate less defenses in other places.

The second point in engaging defenses is that we’re making those holes in the overall air defense coverage. Those holes are exploited for other things. Also, we're depleting their air defense missile stocks because those are not limitless. And from the political standpoint, we're also demonstrating the obvious inability of Russian air defense systems, which respectively makes them less lucrative on the world arms markets.

TWZ: And this is part of a coordinated campaign, it’s not just Crimea, right? You're doing this inside Russia, with the strikes on air bases and other targets and on Moscow?

KB: Let's put it like this, we have never confirmed [attacks on Moscow] officially (Budanov laughs) and I will be keeping that stance. But I can share my opinion about those strikes. All the above-mentioned factors clearly coincide with the strikes inside Russia. Especially when we're talking about the obviously decreasing demand for Russian weapons because when the whole world sees that some drones are attacking Moscow, nobody wants to buy Russian air defense systems any longer. And that is very painful for them. And it links back to additional factors which are absent when we're discussing Crimea.

One side note. There's a completely opposite situation in terms of demand on weapon systems. There's a very high demand on Ukrainian drones now. We can’t sell those now because all of them are used for warfighting, but after the war ends, this will have a lot of meaning.

Now speaking about the strikes deep into Russia, including Moscow, that are conducted by someone. There is a social side of it. Because now the Russian population and especially large Russian businesses really start to feel the impact of war. Because before that, it was just a war going on on TV. Yes, it did have some financial impact on big players, but smaller ones weren't even touched. But demonstrative strikes, such as strikes against Moscow city - the skyscraper district in Moscow - demonstrates to everyone that now it touches upon them.

Besides that, it undermines the belief of the population in an all-powerful Russian regime that is the strongest one in the world. They start asking those logical questions, like: "where's our air defenses that are supposed to protect us?" And they start blaming their authorities for that, for stealing all the money. The next aspect is strikes against critical military infrastructure. It includes oil refineries that supply fuel to the warfighting as well as the factories and plants that produce components for military equipment. So that’s the overall picture.

TWZ: Talk to me about the sabotage attack on Chkalovsky Air Field, located less than 20 miles from Moscow.
KB: Those were activities of sabotage groups.
TWZ: Are they connected to you?
KB: Of course all of those [groups] are in some kind of connection with us.
TWZ: Did you suggest that attack? Orchestrate it? Plan it?
KB: Of course. We’re assisting them, let’s put it that way.
TWZ: Did you select the target and help them figure out how to enter the base and blow up the planes?
KB: Let’s skip that one.
TWZ: What effect is being able to breach such a secure base having in Russia?

KB: The explanation here is the same because it was an attack conducted in a secure area actually inside Moscow because that airfield is within the greater Moscow [region]. It demonstrates the obvious inability of the regime to protect even its most critical and secure infrastructure. And if we're talking about airframes, of course, Russia has a lot of those but some of them, such as the Il-20, are not in big numbers available.

TWZ: Did you suggest that those particular aircraft be targeted?
KB: (Laughs) So we're going back to the spot where I didn't want to go.
TWZ: What is the military chatter you are picking up in the wake of this attack? Is there panic? Consternation?
KB: We're aware of the very negative reaction because they got the blame for it. This surely wasn't the task, but it's a side effect. And they received the blame because they were supposed to ensure security and they let those sabotage people come into that secure facility and conduct this sabotage operation.
TWZ: Who received the blame?
KB: The FSB. Besides that, of course, it's a blow against the political leaders, and military leadership of the Russian Federation because they are not able obviously to ensure proper guarding of strategic critical airfields in Moscow.
TWZ: Do you think they have a dartboard with your face on it at the FSB?
KB: (Laughs) I don’t know, I haven’t been there.
TWZ: I want to return a little bit to the counteroffensive. It's obviously a big part of what's going on. And you must get tired of being asked about the pace of this. What do you tell people when they bring that up?

KB: I'm also always referring those questions to the General Staff. They're doing the fight. I'm just assisting.

TWZ: Can you talk about how this will progress into the winter? When we first met and I asked if you were concerned about fighting in the cold, you said, 'It's no problem.' So does this pending weather concern you?

KB: It’s not a problem at all. And as everyone saw last time, it's not a problem to fight in winter for both sides - for us and for Russians. It's not a pleasant thing to do, but it's not a big deal. There's one very important nuance that makes a difference between current warfighting and the previous periods of fighting. Currently, all main instances of fighting are done on foot without using any materiel. This is linked to the high saturation of artillery systems on the forefront and also portable anti-tank weapons. And that's true for both sides. Those [armored] systems are not enough to create a gap in the orbits of the enemy - to create a powerful breakthrough as in classic doctrine. But it is well enough to deter any attempt of the enemy of any side to conduct that breakthrough with materiel and convoys.

Also, there's a high level of saturation with both anti-personnel and anti-tank minefields. Anti-tank mines are making a lot of difference because when such a mine goes off on their wheels, it completely destroys the wheels and that piece of materiel is not able to move any further. Damage done to a piece of equipment is minimal but it still cannot move any longer. Those anti-tank mines are a big problem for those tracked vehicles. And a new feature that hasn't been observed anywhere before is the high number of FPV [First Person Video] suicide drones on both sides which are able to engage practically any piece of equipment.

All of those above-mentioned factors reduced the possibility of using armored equipment in practically all of the main directions to the minimum. Now that hardware is only used for evacuation or to swiftly transport infantry teams to a particular spot but it doesn't take part in the fighting.

TWZ: Given that, those 31 Abrams tanks heading to Ukraine…

KB: We’re looking forward to seeing that. We haven't seen them yet.

TWZ: Will they make a difference given all these factors and given the difficulty of maneuvering in mud?

KB: They should be used in a very tailored way for very specific, well-crafted operations because if they are used at the front line and just in a combined arms fight, they will not live very long on the battlefield. They need to be used in those breakthrough operations, but very well-prepared.

TWZ: Are you confident that's going to happen? Let me step back to the situation in June near Malaya Tokmachka where there were a number of armored vehicles were destroyed.

KB: Actually there wasn't that much materiel that was destroyed. There was a lot of damaged materiel. And by now it's repaired. The number of those that were destroyed was not that high. But it's the very example we've just talked about. So if if we just deploy some battalion tank group into the battlefield somewhere, just as long as it gets under the range of artillery it will get hit.

I will share two other examples on the enemy side. Similar situations could be observed during Russian attempts to attack Vuhledar last winter. The same thing happened. They went on attack in combat convoys and there were dozens of pieces of equipment that just didn't get through. And by the way, what is peculiar about that specific operation was that it was commanded personally by Gen. [Sergei] Gerasimov, and when all that equipment was destroyed, he blamed everyone around him and just left the frontline.
I'll provide you with one more different example. It's about how Wagner units advanced. When they did manage to take Bakhmut [on May 21], they were not using armored vehicles. They were only using artillery support to infantry actions on foot. So practically they were just using infantry.

TWZ: That's expensive in terms of lives, right? Are you able to talk about the toll these kinds of attacks are taking on Ukrainian forces?

KB: Regretfully I don't possess precise numbers of our casualties. But it is completely logical that all of our casualties - both killed in action and wounded in action - went up as we shifted to offensive operations if we compare those with the previous periods. But there is still this very interesting peculiarity that even though we're on the offensive, our numbers of casualties are still lower than on the enemy’s side who are in defense.

But having described the overall realities of our current situation we’re smoothly coming to the conclusion that we will have to change something. The conclusion is that we'll need additional weapons systems and capabilities that could still change this balance we have today. Because looking at the situation solely from the perspective of manpower, if we compare the Ukrainian potential with Russian potential, the Russians have a lot more human resources. That is why we cannot keep on fighting just soldier on soldier. This will not deliver the results we want.

WZ: So what do you have to do to change this?

KB: We need to resolve the issue of increasing numbers of overall artillery barrels on the battlefield. And we need longer-range weapon systems in order to engage their command posts, their logistics storages, etc., etc.

TWZ: When you meet with U.S. officials are you going to ask for [Army Tactical Missile System] ATACMS? And what are you going to say to convince them to provide ATACMS?

KB: I think that this issue will be raised.

TWZ: What’s your argument for them?

KB: My argumentation is very simple. The majority of [Russian] command posts and logistic storages are beyond the distance of 85 kilometers (about 50 miles) which is the maximum range for our current [Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) munitions] - for [M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or] HIMARS that we have. The Russians just place command posts and other things beyond those distances so we don't have anything to reach them there. And the situation is the same with Russian aviation at the airfields. Fighting Russian aviation using air defense systems is very costly and ineffective. Aviation should be taken out at the air bases.

TWZ: Are you talking about airfields in Russia?

KB: No, we’re talking about the airfields in the occupied areas of Ukraine.

TWZ: Like those bases in Crimea.

KB: Crimea is Ukraine.

TWZ: On Tuesday, a U.S. official said the new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), a replacement for ATACMS, is coming online soon and could potentially open up the availability of ATACMS for Ukraine. Do you have a sense of how many ATACMS the U.S. has that they can give you?

KB: So let's wait for the official announcements to be made. There are still different ways how this situation can turn out so let's wait for [the official announcement] but I can say conditionally that if it's 100 missiles, this won’t change the situation.

TWZ: You need thousands?

KB: At least hundreds.

TWZ: Do you think you will return to Ukraine with good news about ATACMS?

KB: I always hope for the better. We'll do everything to make that happen.

TWZ: Let me switch to the Russian side of this war. As Ukrainian forces push through that Robotyne-Verbove salient, as there's success near Bakhmut with the recent capture of Andriivka and Klischiivka, and as the Russians are trying to push through toward Kupiansk, how can the Russians man all these areas?

KB: It’s not actually like that.

TWZ: So tell me, because you know better than I do!

KB: The offensive operation in the south will continue as it's been ongoing as long as we have resources. In parallel to that, of course, are operations for the de-occupation of Bakhmut. You’ve very rightly mentioned that we recently have taken back Klischiivka, which looks like it's a very small [spot] of land, but it's important because it's on a hill overlooking the rest of the terrain.

The next step is to cut off all the supply routes that go into Bakhmut. Practically this operation we’re following is a track really similar to the Russian one which they used to take Bakhmut. The only difference is that they still conducted those frontal attacks on the city which led to very high casualties in manpower. We won’t be doing that. We will try and envelop the city and only after it's enveloped will we be entering the city.

And you mentioned the Russian actions in Kupiansk. Those are just local operations that cannot be called a campaign or an offensive operation. They had certain success a few months ago but after that they were stopped at certain defense lines and there's nothing happening since.

TWZ: Is the operation in Bakhmut designed to pin down Russian forces and keep them from reinforcing the Berdiansk and Melitopol attack axes?

KB: For sure, and it has delivered the result that we wanted. For example, the Russians recently redeployed their only reserve force - the 25th Army - which was just recently raised and hasn't completed its creation. Now it's redeployed to roughly the north of Bakhmut and that's the place where it's going to be buried.

TWZ: How many forces does the 25th Army have?

KB: About 15,000 men. It’s not that much. And besides that, the threat for Russians to lose Bakhmut makes them redeploy at all times additional and additional forces to the Bakhmut area, which of course drains their resources from other directions like the south.

TWZ: Speaking of which, are the Russians able to reinforce their defense against the Burdiansk and Melitopol pushes? Are they able to bring enough troops there to prevent Ukrainian advances, given all the stresses?

KB: So we're going back to the previous question. All that they have already have been thrown into the fire. And now all the backbone of current Russian airborne troops is in defense and trying to deter the movement of our offensive groupings in the south. Before that, there were units of the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade. That brigade was completely defeated, completely smashed, and now they have withdrawn being replaced by airborne troops.

TWZ: How do you protect that Robotyne-Verbove salient against a Russian incursion?

KB: You can’t invent anything new. You have to be powerful in defense, but you have to be constantly pushing forward. In this case, they will just physically be unable to fight back. So to continue the way it actually happens now across the whole of the front line.

TWZ: Will you strike the Kerch Bridge again and if so, what will Putin do?

KB: It's not a question of will we strike or won’t we strike. We're doing that regularly so we will finish it. It’s just an issue of time.

TWZ: And what will Putin do?

KB: He'll get upset once again. What can he do?

TWZ: Did you sink the Project 22160 class patrol ship Sergey Kotov with uncrewed surface vessels (USV) and do you have any pictures to show that?

KB: It is damaged. Its propeller was damaged and also it's got a hole on the backside of the body on the right. It's 50 by 100 centimeters (about 5.5 square feet). So it will be sent for repairs and this ship will spend some time in the dock.

TWZ: Can you talk about some of the weapons you've been using - the modified Neptunes, the sea drones, the UAVs?

KB: We’re using everything we have available. The list of various drones produced in Ukraine is quite large now and we're using everything we can. The Neptunes are in the process of development, which is still ongoing and they are being improved and improved. But the problem with those is that we don't have the line to produce a lot of them. So the problem is in the quantity of those available.

TWZ: So when you request a strike with a modified Neptune, what kind of targets are you looking at given the limited number?

KB: The purpose of moves with those weapon systems is to make holes in Russian air defense coverage and then to exploit that hole in the air defense coverage for other operations.

TWZ: I want to do a complete shift here. Were you guys involved with the attack on a Wagner-backed militia in Sudan? CNN reported that Ukrainians were likely involved in the attack on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) forces with FPV drones.

KB: I will only say the following: About two to three months ago I was giving an interview to one of the media, I don’t remember which specific one. I answered them back then that anywhere across the world we will be seeking and hunting down Russian military criminals, and sooner or later that time will come whenever they are. That is why we shouldn't be surprised when in any territory, something happens to Russian military criminals.

Then speaking about your specific question about Sudan, regretfully I cannot confirm or deny. I suppose it's not a big secret that there were and there still are Wagner fighters in the same way as everywhere in central Africa. Russia has led itself to a situation where it's on the verge of strategic collapse. Russia step-by-step will be gradually lose what it has won. It has paid a large price in terms of men, in terms of financial resources, everywhere across the world. The more Russia fights against us, the more it loses.

TWZ: Who killed former Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin?
KB: I wouldn’t be in a hurry to say he’s killed.
TWZ: You think he might be alive?
KB: I just wouldn't rush with that question. I don't possess any confirmation.
TWZ: You don’t have confirmation that he’s dead yet?
KB: We don’t possess that.

TWZ: Do you trust Elon Musk?

KB: (Laughs) In what sense?

TWZ: There was the discussion over Walter Isaacson’s book excerpt and whether Musk shut off Starlink to prevent a Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol last year, or whether as he claimed he denied a request to provide it.

KB: Look, [Starlink] is a private property of a private person. Yes we really very widely use his products and services. The whole of the line of contact talks to each other to some extent using his products and services. The only thing I can say here is that without those services and products it would be a catastrophe. But it is true that he did turn off his products and services over Crimea before. But there's another side to that truth. Everybody's been aware of that.

TWZ: So he did turn it off?

KB: This specific case everybody's referring to, there was a shutdown of the coverage over Crimea, but it wasn't at that specific moment. That shutdown was for a month. There might have been some specific cases I'm not aware of. But I'm totally sure that throughout the whole first period of the war, there was no coverage at all.

TWZ: But did he ever put it on and then shut it off?

KB: There have been no problems since it's been turned on over Crimea.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

La guerre d’Ukraine redéfinit-elle l’emploi des drones à la mer ?
Is the war in Ukraine redefining the use of drones at sea?

The war in Ukraine saw the use of a large number of drones, albeit mainly aerial, in support of reconnaissance/surveillance, battlefield interdiction, artillery targeting and deep strike missions. However, the drone war has also been waged at sea - with spectacular demonstrations that could well have an impact on the way we think about naval operations in the future.

Part of the Black Sea fleet finally ceased operations from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk in September. In addition to the vulnerability of the Crimme naval base to aerial attack, including from drones, there is the threat posed by booby-trapped surface drones. A surface drone, possibly intended to act as a remote-controlled torpedo via a Starlink satellite link, was found stranded on a beach near Sebastopol around 20 September. It was a semi-submersible, three to four metres long, probably unobtrusive to radar because of its low profile, equipped with an optronic system, but also with what looked like a satellite link antenna. Its propulsion system appears to be a waterjet. Most of the craft's length is taken up by an explosive charge of unknown nature and mass - perhaps of the order of 30 to 50 kg. The bow is fitted with what appear to be two contactors to detonate the charge.

Rustic sophistication

The system itself is surprisingly 'rustic in its sophistication'. All the components used seem to be readily available on the market, right down to the Starlink, of which around twenty thousand terminals are available in Ukraine, or the waterjets that are said to be similar to the Canadian Sea-Doo. The nature of its propulsion (electric, petrol or diesel) is unknown, but H. I. Sutton indicates that certain Sea-Doo models equipped with a petrol engine can reach speeds of up to 110 kph. Similarly, it is probably equipped with batteries to power the optronic and communication systems, but their capacity and endurance are also unknown. Integrating the various components would appear to be relatively straightforward in a country with several repair and maintenance sites that have not been taken over by the Russian forces.

The crucial factor for these drones is their satellite link. Discreet, it is much less easily detected or jammed and does not imply a maximum distance of use: it is naturally beyond direct sight. As a result, the only limitation to the use of these drones at a distance is their fuel capacity and consumption. In Ukraine, the average throughput of Starlink terminals is of the order of 200 Mb/s, enabling video streams from the optronic sensor to be retransmitted virtually instantaneously - with a latency of just a few milliseconds. The latter is, comparatively, much more bandwidth-intensive than the drone's remote control itself. Finally, the USV (Uncrewed surface vehicle) is like a remote-controlled booby-trapped ship, with the result that it is adaptable to the tactical situation. We could imagine a drone striking on the basis of GPS coordinates, for example, but which would not be able to engage in complex tactical schemes.

Where speed is often seen as a determinant of the efficiency of naval strikes, slowness also has its advantages. For example, several drones can be flown out day after day, remotely controlled along different trajectories so as not to attract attention, and then grouped together in a given area until conditions are right for engagement. The flexibility and ruggedness of the engines and the reliability of the satellite link offer a number of possibilities... as long as the batteries last or the services are not interrupted. The causes of the USV's grounding in September are not known, but it is unlikely that it was deliberate - particularly in view of the other actions in which these vehicles were to be involved.

Operational results

It is possible that one of these drones - or a heavier version - was involved in the attack on the Crimean bridge on 8 October. While the precise cause of the explosion that destroyed several spans of one of the two road decks and caused a train of fuel to burn is not known, video surveillance images could suggest that a bow passed under a section of the bridge not intended for navigation. The advantage of the drone here would lie in its discreet pre-positioning near the bridge, waiting for a rail fuel convoy to pass. Russian forces are far more dependent on rail than road for their logistics, and a train fire is guaranteed to have structural effects on the steel deck. The type of filler used is not known, but Ukraine, like Russia, knows how to use thermite, which is particularly useful against steel.

While the use of surface UAVs is speculative in this case, it was proven in the combined attack on Sevastopol on 29 October. Several USVs - up to seven have been mentioned - were involved in actions both at sea and in the base's roadstead, in conjunction with unspecified types of aerial drones. The images released by the Ukrainian defence forces show three phases:

• a USV, whose sensor operates in infrared, approaches a Grigorovitch class frigate, to a distance that would enable it to trigger the contactors against its hull, at about the level of the Russian vessel's chimney ;
• another sequence of the video shows several ships' bows, obviously in the Sebastopol harbour;
• a third sequence shows a drone heading towards what appears to be a Ropucha-type LST or a Grigorovitch at sea, but it comes under artillery fire, is chased by a Russian Mi-17 and is diverted away from the ship. It was probably this drone that was announced as destroyed by Russia.

Moscow acknowledged that a Natya deminer had been hit in the harbour, as well as damage to the mast of a frigate - although it did not mention any damage to the hull, and it is not known whether it was another frigate. Several explosions were also heard in the naval base, as well as being observed on the city's surveillance videos. So not everything is known about the attack on 29 October, but it obviously raises the question of the lack of preparation on the part of the Russian forces, who were aware of the likelihood of such actions. It also shows the pressure to which Russian forces are subjected at their bases in Crimea, with results that go far beyond the destruction of the Moskva. Naval aviation capabilities were reduced by 50% after strikes on the Saky and Hvardiiske air bases on 9 and 16 August respectively.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

Strategic implications

If this is yet another illustration of the fact that a navy with virtually annihilated surface combat capabilities can inflict damage on a much more powerful navy that is supposed to have mastery of the seas (6), there are undoubtedly a number of lessons to be learned in terms of naval warfare. The use of suicide boats is nothing new. In Fascist Italy, the Decima flottiglia motoscafi armati siluranti (Decima flottiglia MAS) had developed a series of piloted systems for striking ships in port, not without success, notably at Alexandria in December 1941. Similarly, the Tamil Tigers were able to use systems designed for the Black Sea Tigers, with success against the Sri Lankan navy (7). In January 2017, the Houthis targeted and hit a Saudi frigate at sea, and subsequently stepped up their attempts, notably in 2020. In all these cases, however, we were dealing with manned craft. This obviously poses a series of constraints in terms of voluntarism, design (particularly height and therefore visual stealth) and endurance at sea.

But the use of remote piloting changes all that. Paradoxically, the closest example to the Ukrainian USV could be the German Fernlenkboot of the First World War. The idea was to have discrete, 17 m long surface vessels capable of carrying around 700 kg of explosives. They were wire-guided from the coast, on the assumption that they would be used against Allied ships blockading the German coast. In practice, an aircraft provided the lighting and gave the drone guidance orders by radio. On the ground, operators carried out the manoeuvres requested, the control cable being 20 km long. The impractical system only hit HMS Erebus, although it did not sink her. The idea was taken up again with the Linsen during the Second World War. This time, the boat was piloted. Once the target was in sight, the pilot jumped into the sea. Another ship would pick him up, but above all would control the boat remotely on its target.

In the German case, the devices were of little use, not because of the basic idea, but because of technical bottlenecks relating to target detection and guidance. In this area, the quality of optronics and satellite links, which offer large bandwidths accessible to any user - and no longer just to military forces with access to communications satellites - is radically changing the situation. This is all the more the case as many attacks carried out by human torpedoes have failed to produce the desired results simply because the intended targets... were no longer in port. Now, with strike drones that have real endurance (and can wait for the right moment) and the proliferation of reconnaissance/monitoring systems, these "missed appointments" should be less frequent.

Whether we are talking about drones, constellations of commercial imaging satellites offering a high revisit frequency or even hacking into surveillance cameras in a city hosting a naval base, the options are wide-ranging and are sometimes less costly than using more conventional systems. In the Ukrainian case, there are undoubtedly lessons to be learnt, particularly in terms of the size of the boats: too small, they may be less enduring and may not be able to carry sufficiently powerful loads - the limitation in this area no doubt being the machining of suitable fibreglass hulls, which does not allow for everything in terms of dimensions.

There is also no doubt that these actions will be closely analysed, whether in terms of the countermeasures to be adopted - and perhaps the return of protective nets? - or in terms of the potential offered by these systems in terms of anti-ship capabilities, for coastal defence or as part of offensive actions from mother ships.

 

[Picdelamirand-oil]

Cinq cent cinquante-deuxième jour de guerre : état des forces et perspectives

Five hundred and fifty-second day of war: state of forces and outlook

If we knew the score of matches in advance, there would be absolutely no point in playing them. The same is true of battles - and even less so, because you die in them. Apart from an initial overwhelming balance of power in favour of one side at the start of a military operation, it is impossible to predict what will happen next, if only because the resources involved are enormous and the interactions between the various friendly and enemy forces quickly become a three-body problem in complex science. Deciding now on the final success or failure of a current operation is like deciding whether a team has won or lost with thirty minutes to go, when the score is still tied and there is no outrageous domination by one side.

These bloody operations-matches are themselves only isolated confrontations within the framework of a long-term confrontation-competition, which leads us to a three-stage reflection, which also form three levels of uncertainty: the strategy to win the competition; the operational art to win matches of different kinds; the tactics to win the actions within the matches. There are a number of different types of operation-match underway in the Russian-Ukrainian war. As a result, we're also witnessing a great deal of indecision - in the strong sense of hesitation, not lack of will. Let's take a quick look at the situation, concentrating solely on "hit operations".

I originally used the expression "privateer warfare" to refer to operations in depth. It was an expression coined by General Navarre, commander of the French Expeditionary Corps in the Indochina war, to designate the modus operandi he initially wanted to apply against the Viet-Minh battle corps, based on guerrilla warfare, air strikes, airborne operations and temporary camps. If the idea was good, the application was flawed. The general principle is to use multiple small "blows": ground raids, air or naval strikes, sabotage, etc. to weaken the enemy. We can hope that this weakening will be enough to produce a strategic effect, such as surrender - which rarely happens - or the neutralization of the enemy, who becomes a residual threat. More often than not, however, this weakening is primarily intended to facilitate conquest operations - the other main modus operandi in which the aim is to occupy the terrain and dislocate the enemy's position.

Strike operations are primarily the responsibility of joint forces - the Navy, Air Force, Cyber Force - and Special Forces, either autonomously or in combination.

Let's move on quickly to cyber operations, not because it's not interesting, but because there are few open elements on this dimension, which was much talked about before the war, and which we are obliged to note has not had the spectacular effects expected. Perhaps this is no longer a "blue ocean", a virgin zone in which the possibilities are considerable, but a very red ocean that has been occupied for a long time now, since confrontation here knows no peacetime or wartime, and where parries have now greatly reduced the initial effectiveness of attacks. It may also be that this space is simply not seen - and therefore unduly neglected by commentators like me, especially as it's not their area of expertise. Nonetheless, it's clear that this is a field where the Ukrainians, with the help of the West, which can be used to the full since it's not very visible there, can have an advantage and deal major blows to the Russian networks.

The airfield is much more visible. Here we can see the development of a specific Ukrainian anti-city operation, which we'll call "Operation Moscow" because the Russian capital is its main target. Its first distinctive feature is that it is now carried out, almost on a daily basis, using only Ukrainian-made long-range aerial drones - Western allies forbid the Ukrainians from using their weapons to strike Russian soil. Drones, then. As a reminder, between the three types of air campaigns using only aircraft, missiles and drones, the reduction in projected power is almost logarithmic. In other words: with drones alone, very little damage is done. To put this into perspective, a single Russian Su-30SM aircraft can carry the payload of 400 Ukrainian Beaver drones, with the added bonus of being able to do so several times over.

Be that as it may, Operation Moscow introduces nuisances - the paralysis of airports, for example - but does little damage, and that's just as well, since the operation has a psychological purpose. It satisfies the need for reciprocity, if not retaliation and revenge, of the Ukrainian population hit by Russian missiles since the first day of the war, and also aims to stress the Russian population, particularly those in the preserved, urban, middle-class Russia of Muscovy, by bringing the war home.

Its second particularity is that it is perhaps the first "non-violent" air campaign in history - apart from the leaflet bombings of the phoney war in 1939-1940 - since there is a clear desire to avoid causing casualties by striking symbolic targets - ministry or business offices in particular, or even the Kremlin - empty at night. It also has the merit of satisfying the third audience: the rest of the world, and in particular public opinion in Ukraine's allied countries, which would find it hard to accept that Ukraine would knowingly strike at the population of Russian cities. It is not certain that the Ukrainians will always succeed. Some people have already been injured by these drone attacks, and statistically we're not safe from a blunder that would result in deaths. This would both damage the image of the Ukrainian cause - and this image is essential if Western support is to be maintained or not - and provoke an anti-Ukrainian reaction from the Russian population, which is presented above all as apathetic.

All these attacks are also challenges for Russian air defense, which can boast small victories and protect the population when it shoots down drones, but is also often caught out. In any case, it is obliged to devote more resources to defending the cities and therefore less to the front line, and this physical presence in the cities further contributes to "getting the war into the heads" of Russian civilians - one of the goals sought by the Ukrainians.

As a good military man, I prefer anti-forces actions to anti-city actions, and Operation Bases, which consists of attacking Russian air bases in depth, seems to me to be much more useful than destroying business offices. Of the 85 Russian aircraft and 103 helicopters identified as destroyed or damaged by Oryx, at least 14 and 25 respectively were at bases. These attacks mainly took place in the occupied territories, including Crimea, but also in Russia, near Rostov on February 26 and March 1, with two OTR-21 Tochka missiles. On October 30, ground sabotage destroyed or damaged ten helicopters in the Ostrov region, very close to Latvia. In September 2022, two bombers (a Tu-95 and a Tu-22) were hit in two Tu-141 drone attacks - apparently old modified long-range reconnaissance drones - and more recently on August 19 near Novgorod (a Tu-22) in a more mysterious manner. On peut rattacher à cette opération, le raid dlicoptères Mi-24 du 31 mars 2022 sur un dépôt de carburant à Belgorod, l'attaque aux drones de la raffinerie Novochtakhtinsk le 22 juin 2022. All campaign anti-forces in depth is still a series of epingle, but this is the epingle the epingle more rentables which are.

The Ukrainians have every interest in further developing this in-depth campaign with a sabotage force, i.e. a clandestine one. It's harder to organize than air strikes, but the effects may be stronger. As with the moon landings, the presence of humans has a greater psychological impact on military operations than that of mere probes and machines. Knowing that men have penetrated, almost violated, national space in the air, and even more so on the ground, to cause damage, comes as more of a shock than if the same damage had been done by drones. If, on top of that, we don't know who carried out these actions, paranoia develops - in Russian society and power probably more than anywhere else. The Ukrainians have every interest in further developing their long-range strike force beyond the drones, which above all bring numbers, with missiles with a range of several hundred kilometers.

This is what they are doing with a number of projects that need not only to be invented, but above all mass-produced. If they succeed, the campaign of deep strikes will take on a whole new dimension, whether anti-city with the risks mentioned, or preferentially anti-forces. On the other hand, perhaps if a certain threshold is reached - say, if Russian soil is attacked by drones, missiles or commandos on a daily basis - the ban on the use of Western weapons will no longer make sense, and the Ukrainians will be able to use them too, thus increasing their capabilities all at once.

While the Ukrainian capacity to act in the Russian depths has been steadily increasing, Russia's capacity in Ukraine has been steadily decreasing. With a powerful air force, an impressive arsenal of missiles and a dozen special forces brigades, we could have imagined Ukraine ravaged to its very core from the start of the war.

In fact, the use of all these resources lasted only a few weeks, and at a much lower level than might have been expected, due to uncertain doctrine and, above all, to Ukraine's solid air defences. The Russians therefore moved very quickly down the logarithmic scale of projected power, starting by reducing the activity of their manned aircraft over Ukrainian territory to devote them to the front line, then rapidly reducing the rate of fire of modern missiles, then substituting them with more and more other types of missiles just as devastating but with less precision and often shorter range, and finally using more and more Shahed drones and multiple rocket launchers instead for cities within range.

The tonnage of explosives launched by the Russians has steadily decreased, while concentrating on towns close to the front line and causing almost as many civilian casualties through lesser precision. In fact, there is no longer any guiding principle behind these strikes, apart from the need to retaliate against Ukrainian strikes. This is all the more absurd in that it is helping to damage Russia's image, which they don't seem to care about, apart from the fact that it affects Western public opinion's support for Ukraine, a strategic factor for them. Of course, this in no way diminishes Ukrainian determination - quite the contrary.

The Russian air campaign in depth could be boosted by increased production of missiles and/or their covert import from allied countries, but above all by the sudden weakening of Ukraine's ammunition-starved air defences. Without ammunition, Russian fighter-bomber squadrons could penetrate Ukrainian territory and raise the logarithm of power. One of the advantages of F-16 aircraft, which are above all flying air-to-air batteries with a range of 150 km, is that they can help prevent this.

One of the mysteries of this war is the astonishing use of Special Forces by the Russians. The Russian Ministry of Defense had decided to build up a solid army. Each Russian intelligence service - FSB, SVR, GRU - has its own Spetsnaz (spetsialnoe naznachenie, special employment). The two FSB units, Alfa and Vympel, total perhaps 500 men. Zaslon, the SVR's internationally-oriented unit, is perhaps 300 strong. The bulk of the forces is obviously made up of the GRU's seven 1,500-strong Spetsnaz brigades, mostly attached to armies, and the 500-strong battalions assigned to each of the fleets, i.e. with support of perhaps 12,000 men. The Air Assault Troops (VDV) also formed a regiment, then a special brigade, the 45th, and finally, a Special Operations Command (KSO) of perhaps 1,500 men, was attached directly to the Army Chief of Staff, much to the GRU's anger. In short, with the support of the VDVs, there was enough here to build up a sabotage force in the depths, or even a guerrilla force, for example along the Polish border, using the Belarussian base at Brest.

This was not the case, as Ukrainian air defense prevented helicopter operations, while Ukrainian territorial defense and police forces kept a tight grip on the terrain. The Special Forces, 45th brigade and GRU brigades were first used in advance of ground operations, whether covertly or not, and then increasingly as replacements for the army's totally deficient infantry. A much reduced 22nd Spetsnaz brigade and what remains of the 45th brigade are currently fighting on the front line in front of Robotyne. Opportunities have certainly been squandered by the Russians in this respect, and it's hard to see how they can remedy the situation. No doubt they're thinking about it, but you can't improvise a force for in-depth action.

In the final analysis, it's worth remembering that in-depth operations rarely produce strategic effects on their own, but they do help to weaken the enemy, provided they don't cost more than they "produce". In this respect, Russian operations no longer produce much, apart from the dead and wounded and the destruction of cathedrals, or at most an economic weakening by attacking grain-trading infrastructures, for example. In a crossroads of strategic curves, to use Svetchin's expression, the Ukrainians are on the contrary rising in power, but the material effects remain minimal compared to what is happening on the front line, and it's mainly a question of psychological effects, rather vague but nonetheless certain. In 2024, things will undoubtedly be different.