Abstract: In spite of the expectations of Moscow, the war in Ukraine has quickly turned into a war of attrition. Based on open-source military publications, this paper aims to present Russian views on the causes of positional war as well as on the future of manoeuvre warfare. While not questioning the purpose of the war, in between the lines, Russian military thinkers acknowledge the responsibility of the political leadership for underestimating Ukraine and using military force in a wasteful manner. On the other hand, they also recognise that the Russian military thinkers were selective when considering lessons of the previous decades, disregarding trends that were pointing to the heavily positional nature of contemporary wars. Finding ways to implement manoeuvre warfare in the current operational environment will most likely be high on the agenda of Russian military thought, as recent publications indicate.

Problem statement: What are the causes of the positional war in Ukraine from the Russian perspective?

So what?: Based on the Russian military’s poor performance in Ukraine, it would be a mistake to disregard Russian theoretical discussion about the lessons of the war. Russian military science has been capable in the past of producing innovative ideas to break out of positional war.

Back to the Trenches

Russia’s “special military operation” that aimed to achieve its initial strategic objectives in ten days[1] has quickly bogged down to positional trench warfare, where–as former Russian Chief of the General Staff, Jury Baluevsky said–the “rate of advancement on the battlefield looks turtle-like even by the standards of the First World War.”[2] Based on Vladimir Putin’s comments at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum this summer, the Kremlin’s plan of victory is to squeeze out the Ukrainian forces from the territories they aim to control instead of aiming to achieve their goals quickly, which would require another wave of mobilisation.[3] This indicates that the Russian political leadership embraces the strategy of attrition.

The Kremlin’s plan of victory is to squeeze out the Ukrainian forces from the territories they aim to control instead of aiming to achieve their goals quickly, which would require another wave of mobilisation.

That being said, Russian military scientists are working on solutions to escape what they call a positional “dead end” to restore manoeuvre, if not in Ukraine, then on the battlefields of a future war. It would be a mistake to overlook the Russian professional discussion on this subject. Besides Ukraine, it is Russia that is gaining firsthand experience fighting a modern conventional war. From a “lessons learned” perspective, some compare the value of the war in Ukraine rightly to the Spanish Civil War, seeing it as a similar forerunner to the next great power war as was the latter to the Second World War.[4] However, the significance of the Spanish Civil War pales in comparison to the Russia-Ukraine War due to the latter’s scale, Russia’s direct involvement and high number of casualties. Thus, the next great power war will likely have more in common with the Ukraine War than the Second World War had with the Spanish Civil War – at least from the perspective of the Russian military elite.

The Russian theoretical debate about the problem of positional warfare is justified even more so as Russian military science has produced solutions to break the deadlock of positional warfare in the past. It was the Soviets who, after the First World War, worked out the most coherent theories on how to achieve operational breakthroughs. The U.S. Air-Land Battle doctrine has relied in no small part on the Soviet ideas about operational art of that time.[5]

It would not be fair to claim that the challenges the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces face in Ukraine would apply the same degree to other, more advanced militaries as well. However, it would be a mistake to ignore these problems, attributing them solely to the limited capabilities of the warring parties. As the late David Johnson pointed out, the “hubris and validation” that can be found in the evaluations of Russian failures in Ukraine can lead to drawing not the right conclusions but the ones that justify the correctness of Western ideas about how to fight a war.[6]

Why Has the War in Ukraine Become Positional?

Like during and after the First World War, the diagnosis of the causes of positional war is very similar in Western and Russian military thinking. As former Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, said, “Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”[7] The problem can be summarised in the contradiction that highly mechanised armies are waging positional trench warfare using dismounted infantry, as Baluevsky put it.[8] This is largely because modern battlefields are saturated with different sensors that eliminate surprise, and their integration with fire and strike systems–as it is known in Russian military terminology–reconnaissance–fire and reconnaissance–strike complexes makes the concentration of forces too risky.

Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.

Despite the similar diagnosis, though, the Russian assessment of the causes of the positional deadlock includes some nuances worth exploring here. The fact that the war in Ukraine quickly turned into a war of attrition and has remained so in the past two and a half years was not evident and is due to both contextual and general factors. To the first belong the choices Moscow and–to a lesser extent–Kyiv made.

The Choices that Made the War Positional

Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff Makhmut Gareev, who headed the Russian Academy of Military Science until his death, said in 2005 that one major lesson of the wars fought by Russia is that “from the Crimean War to the present day (a total of 150 years) politicians have placed the country and its armed forces in an untenable situation.”[9] They often disregarded the military-strategic situation, or they missed the chance to resolve the problems politically and avoid armed conflict, as happened, for instance, in Chechnya in 1994. “The worst decisions in politics are inconsistent and halfhearted ones. Even if you have already made a mistake and are taking a political step, that step should be decisive, consistent and carried out by the most forceful means possible; there will be fewer casualties, and errors will be fixed more rapidly”, Gareev added.[10] These remarks resonate with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and while contemporary Russian military thinkers refrain from openly criticising the Kremlin, between the lines, the political responsibility for the failures is apparent.

Undoubtedly, the plan of the “special military operation” was based on manoeuvre warfare. Not only do Western assessments confirm this, but Russian definitions of the “special military operation” too, which specified it as a single combined-arms operation meant to achieve strategic goals directly in a relatively short period of time.[11] The reason it failed largely stems from the underestimation of Ukraine. Ruslan Pukhov points to the unfavourable correlation of forces as the main cause of positional warfare in Ukraine. While the “special military operation” copied Operation Danube of 1968, unlike during the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, the Ukrainian defenders in 2022 outnumbered the Russian occupation force that invaded a much larger country. It was only due to the Ukrainian commanders’ slowness and lack of initiative that the Russian troops near Kyiv avoided the repetition of the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, Pukhov adds.[12] The Kremlin has sent its armed forces to war, ignoring Ukraine’s vast territorial expanse, its considerable military capabilities, its human and industrial potential to recover from the defeats suffered in the initial period of the war and its ability to sustain significant losses in a protracted war. In other words, the Russian leadership fundamentally misjudged the expected character of the war with Ukraine and did not treat Ukraine as a peer adversary to Russia. It did so despite warnings by former high-ranking military officials before the war, who dismissed the assumption that no one would defend the “Kiev regime” and emphasised Ukraine’s significant military potential and the expected Western military support in case of a war.[13]

The Kremlin has sent its armed forces to war, ignoring Ukraine’s vast territorial expanse, its considerable military capabilities, its human and industrial potential and its ability to sustain significant losses in a protracted war.

Consequently, Russian troops were sent to Ukraine with practically no preparation; the soldiers were not informed of the purpose of the operation, their place and their role in the execution of the tasks. In an article that provides a highly critical appraisal of the “military-political” (i.e. the ideological and moral) preparation of Russian soldiers before the war, the author, Colonel Oleg Tukmakov, admits that assumptions about the low morale of the Ukrainian military and that the Russian-speaking population in the southeastern territories of Ukraine would welcome the Russian army as liberators were unfounded. Instead, the Russian troops encountered fierce resistance on behalf of a dedicated enemy.[14]

The Russians thus wasted the element of surprise to inflict major losses to the Ukrainian armed forces in a quick manoeuvre war in the early period. However, they quickly recognised the war’s character in Ukraine, which heavily favoured the defender and took appropriate actions. The withdrawal from the right bank of Kherson and the transition to a strong positional defence in the autumn of 2022 are regarded as the wisest decisions of the Russian military command.[15] Due to this, the Ukrainians–who by the end of May outnumbered the Russians by at least twofold–have also lost their chance to carry out an operational breakthrough and realise a far greater victory than what they achieved in the first year of the war 2022. Pukhov thinks the Ukrainians were too cautious in focusing on the more limited goals of liberating Kherson and Kharkiv instead of attempting a breakthrough in Zaporizzhia.[16] By the time they launched their summer offensive in 2023, the Ukrainians faced a heavily fortified defence and a Russian force augmented by 300,000 mobilised reservists and additional contract soldiers.[17]

The subsequent defensive operation in the summer of 2023 is often compared to the Kursk Battle of 1943, seen as a similar turning point in the war. Konstantin Sivkov, a retired navy captain and the Vice President of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences, claims that the collapse of the Ukrainian offensive is not only a military-strategic defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces but also means the crash of the “hybrid blitzkrieg” of the united West.[18] While Russian military experts praised the successful defensive operation carried out in the summer of 2023, they apparently would have favoured the continuation of strategic defence and force regeneration until a significant numerical and material superiority was established over the enemy.[19] Instead, Moscow has followed a piecemeal approach to replenish its high losses during continuous smaller offensives along the frontline, which was an ineffective use of military force, according to Aleksandr Kalistratov, an editor of the military journal Armeisky Sbornik.[20] Defence Minister Shoigu’s statement in December 2023 that the Russian military was conducting an “active defence” was clearly an euphemism for a grinding and slow offensive without substantial superiority.[21]

While Russian military experts praised the successful defensive operation carried out in the summer of 2023, they apparently would have favoured the continuation of strategic defence and force regeneration.

 

The Technological Sources of Positional War in Ukraine

Besides the choices of the warring parties, it is technology that has driven the war in Ukraine to what former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny called a “stalemate”.[22] While the Russians did not regard Ukraine as a peer enemy before the full-scale invasion, it has become one thanks to Western military support. As such, Russian interpretations that describe the war as a fight not with Ukraine but against the “collective West” are not entirely unfounded. Consequently, Russian military thinkers recognise Ukrainian superiority in command and control, communication and reconnaissance thanks to Western military support. Occasionally, however, they also exaggerate Ukrainian capabilities, probably intentionally, to overstate Russian successes and to downplay failures. Sivkov, in his article, for instance, frames the Ukrainian 2023 summer counteroffensive incorrectly as a clash between Western and Russian military doctrines, in which the latter prevailed.[23] This analysis disregards key capabilities that were not in the possession of the Ukrainian military and the short time of training the Ukrainian soldiers received to successfully implement Western doctrine.

Like Ukrainian and Western military experts, the Russians also see the main reason for the positional warfare in the numerous space reconnaissance systems and various sensors that saturate the battlefield. Both Russia and Ukraine are capable of detecting the concentration of enemy forces and striking them with long-range weaponry, close to real-time. In other words, as Kalistratov writes, the “fog of war” has been largely eliminated from the battlefield, which makes it extremely difficult to achieve surprise.[24]

The “fog of war” has been largely eliminated from the battlefield, which makes it extremely difficult to achieve surprise.

This phenomenon itself was not entirely unexpected for the Russians. Soviet military science, from the onset of the development of precision weapons, had tried to forecast what impact the proliferation of the new technology would have on warfare. In fact, the Soviets were the first to recognise that the precision weapons, munitions and the reconnaissance and guidance systems enabling their application–the combination of which was called in the Soviet terminology reconnaissance-strike complex (разведывательно-ударный комплекс, РУК), on the strategic-operational level and reconnaissance-fire complex (разведывательно-огневой комплекс, РОК) on the tactical level–mean not only a force multiplier capability but a real revolution in military affairs.[25] What they overlooked, however, was the prospect that the maturation of this technology could not only lead to a war characterised by high tempo but also restrict manoeuvre and turn the armed conflict into a prolonged attrition.

While the so-called “transparent battlefield” is indeed a novelty of the war in Ukraine, many elements of the war that restrict manoeuvre were not new at all. In fact, the writing was on the wall, and the Russians just ignored it. In the context of the war in Ukraine, analysts have pointed out that Western military science has significantly overestimated the importance of offensive manoeuvres with highly mobile and relatively light units, and has devalued the role of positional warfare and fortification.[26] Indeed, U.S. military doctrine did not count with a breakthrough of a defence in depth, as it was designed to fight a defensive operation against the numerically superior Warsaw Pact in the Cold War European theatre, where the offensive task would have consisted of counterattacks against penetration, and at most a limited counteroffensive.[27] However, the Soviet military planners had not anticipated breaking through a prepared defence either, at least not with conventional means. In fact, after the nuclear revolution of the 1960s, they calculated that the defensive lines of NATO forces in the European theatre of operations would have been breached over a wide area by the use of tactical nuclear weapons, after which tank and motorised rifle divisions would have advanced through the holes in the defence in march formation. Thus, the front offensive would have consisted of separate, fragmented battles in a non-linear theatre of operations.[28]

With the appearance of precision-guided weapons, the geometry of the battlefield was seen to be transformed, with concepts such as the forward line of own troops (FLOT), the forward edge of the battle area (FEBA), and the forward line of enemy troops (FLET) becoming obsolete.[29] The Soviets believed that the distinction between offence and defence became blurred, as enemy forces could be detected in time and, with long-range artillery and strike systems, fired upon before they could commence an attack. Under these conditions, it would not be possible to establish prepared defences. Therefore, battles would typically take the form of meeting engagements with open flanks secured by obstacles, long-range fires and tempo.[30]

Battles would typically take the form of meeting engagements with open flanks secured by obstacles, long-range fires and tempo.

The experience of the Operation Desert Storm in 1991 has further underlined this view. The coalition forces managed to deceive the Iraqis and thus simply bypassed the otherwise exemplary built fortified defence after a long air campaign in which Iraqi units lost 40-58% of their combat capabilities.[31] As Major General Ivan Vorobyev put it, the operation “became a prolonged fire strike as a result of which Iraq’s defences were so shattered that there was no need to execute an assault to break through fortified positions.”[32]

Russian military thinkers have relied extensively on the lessons of the Gulf War and subsequent Western military operations, which led to the conviction that future wars will take the form of “non-contact” ones. The war’s outcome will be decided in the initial period with a massive air campaign involving long-range precision fire and electronic strikes, followed by ground forces, if necessary, to exploit success and eliminate remaining isolated resistance, Russian military thinkers argued.[33] Makhmut Gareev, in 2015, has warned against absolutising these experiences, refuting the view that future wars will be fought exclusively in a non-contact manner. His words were prophetic: “Liberal-minded political and expert circles”, he said, claim that there will be no more large-scale battles with massed use of tanks and artillery in the future, and that military confrontation will basically take place in the air and in space in a matter of days, thus deciding everything. “Some people even talk about not having to worry about breaking through defences or concentrating fire in the future, because the enemy’s firepower can be destroyed with high precision weapons as soon as they are detected.” Gareev warned that “even in the midst of the most manoeuvrable military operations, the front may stabilise for some time, and it is not possible to break through it and fire on all targets immediately, especially if there is insufficient ammunition. (…) If we start from real life instead of ideological conditions, there is no way to avoid the mass use of artillery and tanks.”[34]

One major lesson of the “special military operation”, according to former Chief of the General Staff Baluevsky, is that Russian military thinkers “snobbishly” ignored the lessons of the Iran-Iraq War, referring to the backwardness of the belligerents. While that war “has not brought about the transparency of the battlefield yet, it demonstrated the increasing vulnerability of tanks and armoured vehicles even though troops were relatively sparsely equipped with anti-tank weapons.”[35] Indeed, Russian military experts emphasise that Ukraine received from the West dozens of anti-tank missiles for each Russian armoured vehicle, that limited the use of tanks to roles of infantry support assault guns and self-propelled artillery.[36]

Like anti-tank weapons, landmines did not represent a new threat either. They were just dismissed before the war. Russian experts are convinced that landmines are responsible for most of the tank losses in Ukraine. While the coalition forces could simply bypass minefields in the Gulf War, the “special military operation” has demonstrated the impossibility of that against the armies of technologically developed countries. Russian experts point out that the theory and practice of establishing mine barriers have developed, whereas the technology and tactics of mine clearing have stuck in the early 1990s.[37] Systems like the mine-clearing line charge equipment M58 MICLIC are not capable of clearing minefields with a depth over 114 meters, have low protection and are stationary for too long (10 minutes or longer) during launch. Moreover, mine clearing this way uncovers the planned route of breakthrough, which allows the enemy to concentrate its fire there before the assault takes place. On the other hand, mechanical mine-clearing devices move too slowly, making their application suitable only once the enemy’s fire systems are fully suppressed. These vehicles proved ineffective in Ukraine, where the Russians prepared minefields with greater depth and density than is prescribed in their doctrines and used various types of mines to make mine clearing more difficult. The Russians concluded that mine clearance in the current operational environment is possible only by hand until technology does not allow the use of AI-assisted robots for this task.[38]

Russian experts point out that the theory and practice of establishing mine barriers have developed, whereas the technology and tactics of mine clearing have stuck in the early 1990s.

Embracing Positional Defence

As Baluevsky’s remarks testify, the Russian military was selective in drawing lessons from wars of the past century, focusing too much on the fast-paced operations fought by the U.S. military against technologically inferior enemies. However, the Russian military elite quickly recognised the character of the war in Ukraine, and it started to prepare for a positional defence against the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive in the spring of 2023.

Unlike the above-mentioned Sivkov, who, among others, compared the Russian defensive operation to the Battle of Kursk in 1943, Colonel General Aleksandr Romanchuk and Colonel Aleksei Shigin referred to another major defensive operation of the Great Patriotic War in their article; Operation Balaton that took place from March 6 to 15 in 1945 on the territory of Hungary. What makes it noteworthy is that General Romanchuk was the commander of the Russian group of forces in the Zaporizzshia direction, when two months after the publication of his article, the Ukrainians launched their counteroffensive there.[39] Romanchuk and Shigin likely chose the example of the Balaton Operation because it was a more static defence than the Kursk one. In fact, they underline the significance of static defence in their article, arguing that against a numerically superior and technologically advanced enemy, the use of static defence is the most appropriate in the most important directions. They name “the courageous manoeuvres with reserves, the second echelon and especially with artillery, the skilful use of anti-tank reserves, mobile blocking units and the means of fire traps [kill zones]’ as the most important lessons of Operation Balaton.”[40]

The courageous manoeuvres with reserves, the second echelon and especially with artillery, the skilful use of anti-tank reserves, mobile blocking units and the means of fire traps [kill zones]’ as the most important lessons of Operation Balaton.

Despite the increased role of static defence, the authors also emphasise that it should not be mistaken for defending forces conducting a rigid defence, as the evolution of warfare has transcended this concept. The wars of the last decades have shown that units defending in this way could not react in time to rapidly changing circumstances and to the actions of enemy airborne, bypassing and raiding forces.[41]

Romanchuk and Shigin point out that, as the “special military operation” proved, in a transparent battlefield, it is essential to disperse forces, to increase the number of hidden and well-protected reserve positions, command posts, ammunition, fuel and lubricants depots, and to change their location frequently (even several times a day). They also emphasise the importance of strict observance of the rules of camouflage, the extensive use of false targets and the latest imitation devices, and other ways of deceiving the enemy, as well as avoiding stereotypical activity.[42]

Thinking about Restoring Manoeuvre

Contrary to the successful defensive operation in the summer of 2023, Russia has been unable to restore manoeuvre on the battlefield in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless, escaping positional warfare is at the forefront of the agenda of Russian military theoretical discussion. While the Russian military adapted its force structure to carry out small unit infantry assaults, it has not abandoned experimenting with mechanised assaults to break through enemy lines, typically resulting in high losses.[43] Kalistratov believes that mechanised offensives in the future will be preceded by a lengthy preparatory phase consisting of a series of strike and fire operations to achieve fire superiority to defeat the enemy remotely in the directions of the attack. This should combine pinpoint strikes of precision weapons against key objects in strongholds with area strikes and fires in the space between defensive positions where elements of the control system, logistics, electronic equipment, UAV operators, and artillery firing positions are usually located.[44] The assaulting units must be supported with an artillery tactic called “moving fire zone”. The Soviets originally developed this method of fire support in response to the appearance of the anti-tank guided missile threat in the 1970s, and it entails a deep and thick fire curtain applied simultaneously on 3-5 lines in front of the attacking formations, shifting towards and into the depth of the enemy defence. This method – especially when the first line of fire zone is situated directly above the battle line of the assaulting armoured vehicles, and as such, airbursts are used over them – practically makes the use of any anti-tank weaponry, including attack drones, impossible.[45] The moving fire zone ensures the unimpeded advancement of troops to the depth of the defending first-echelon battalions. Exploitation of success should be carried out by the successive insertion to the battle “from the depth into the depth” of dense “tank fists”, accompanied by airmobile formations.[46]

Exploitation of success should be carried out by the successive insertion to the battle “from the depth into the depth” of dense “tank fists”, accompanied by airmobile formations.

Whereas the moving fire zone method seems an optimal solution to eliminating enemy anti-tank missile and drone threats, Kalistratov admits the inherent constraints that impede the Russian military from using this method. Namely, it requires a high level of fire control skills as well as robust numbers of guns and shells, which, contrary to the Soviet army, Russia can no longer have. Kalistratov calculates that for every kilometre in the section of a breakthrough, 3-5 artillery batteries are required.[47]

Setting the conditions for manoeuvre requires, first of all, the destruction, suppression or deception of enemy reconnaissance systems with active and passive measures. While the fight against enemy reconnaissance systems demands the development of similarly high-tech countermeasures, Russian experts also acknowledge that the experience of the war has shown that the problem often lies not so much in the existing means of maskirovka as in their inadequate use and when applied properly, deception still works in the current operational environment.[48] That said, the Russian forces in Ukraine are getting more skilful in hiding their movement using the terrain, which aligns with the recommendations of military thinkers.[49]

Russian experts argue that the “radio-electronic–fire battle” (радиоэлектронно-огневое сражение) will be a new form of battle that should precede all operations and each phase thereof to achieve superiority in the electromagnetic domain before the movement of manoeuvre units.[50] Other Russian military thinkers propose the use of the term “energy defeat” (энергетическое поражение) instead of electronic, reflecting the expanding means of the electromagnetic spectrum that includes laser, acoustic and other directed energy weapons.[51] In any case, the complex planning task of suppressing and disorganising enemy reconnaissance and command systems exceeds the existing structures and the responsibility of radio-electronic support forces. This requires the creation of a separate disorganisation group within the staff, according to two Russian professors of the Air Force Academy’s Military Training and Research Centre.[52] Because of the high resilience of network-centric command and control systems, it is not sufficient to disorganise command and control systems only at the tactical level (battalion-brigade). Still, they must also be disarmed at the operational level (brigade-corps), since, by eliminating the brigade command and control posts, command and control is taken over by the division or corps command and control post in a matter of minutes.[53]

The effective disorganisation or deception of the enemy presupposes that the military leader at any level must have an accurate knowledge of the workings, characteristics and capabilities not only of his own but also of the enemy’s combat system.[54] The fact that the Russians exploit Ukrainian unit rotations when they also take their electronic warfare equipment with them, allowing for the Russians to attack under the cover of their FPV drones, testifies about a small step in this direction.[55] The detailed knowledge about the enemy combat system enables one to achieve the highest level of command superiority; “reflexive control”, which means establishing control over the adversary through manipulation to force him to act in ways that are harmful to himself.[56]

The fact that the Russians exploit Ukrainian unit rotations when they also take their electronic warfare equipment with them, allowing for the Russians to attack under the cover of their FPV drones, testifies about a small step in this direction.

While the Russians recognise that superiority in command and control is key to restoring manoeuvre on the battlefield, they also acknowledge that the Russian military lags far behind its potential enemies in this field. Some compare the situation to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when the German Wehrmacht, thanks to its more advanced communications and command and control systems, inflicted a heavy defeat on the Red Army, even though the latter had numerical superiority in almost all areas.[57] Others note that the command posts on the tactical level still reflect the structure that was introduced during the Great Patriotic War, and admit that the current organisation of command and its technical means cannot fully provide neither the necessary situational awareness nor the quality of command and control of troops and the survivability of C2 systems. In the absence of a unified system capable of solving the complex tasks of combat control, the Russians started to use the so-called inter-service information exchange means in Ukraine based on civilian hardware (smartphones, notebooks, tablets). However, these can only automatise certain functions of combat control, mainly fire control, but they are not capable of supporting the command and control of combined arms formations.[58]

Conclusions

Western militaries were unprepared and (still are) to wage wars of attrition.[59] However, Russian military thinkers also underappreciated the prospect of an attritional war based on their conclusions from Western military operations in the previous decades. The fact that the war in Ukraine has quickly bogged down in positional warfare is largely due to the mistakes Russia committed to preparing for the wrong war, despite warnings by former high-ranking Russian military figures. While the Kremlin’s chosen strategy now is the slow attrition of Ukraine, it does not mean that the Russian military fully embraces this approach. On the contrary, Russian military thinkers actively write about the problem of positional warfare, and they search for new forms and methods to restore manoeuvre in the transparent battlefields of a future war. In this process, Russian military thinkers cannot help but admit that they lag behind in the field of command and control, the superiority of which they see as a prerequisite for manoeuvre in the future.

 

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Krisztián Jójárt is a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish Defense University. He has worked with the Budapest-based Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies as a Russia specialist. He holds a PhD in military studies from the National University of Public Service, and an MA in international relations from the Corvinus University of Budapest. His field of research is Russian military thinking. The views contained in this article are the author’s alone and do not represent the views of the Swedish Defense University.

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[1] Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr V. Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds, “Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022,” RUSI, November 30, 2022, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-conventional-warfighting-russias-invasion-ukraine-february-july-2022.

[2] Sergei Valchenko, “СВО и революция военного дела. Новое оружие меняет характер боевых действий и заставляет переписывать учебники тактики,” Армейский Стандарт, January 31, 2024, https://armystandard.ru/news/2024129114-TnO1s.html.

[3] “Plenary session of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum,” President of Russia, June 07, 2024, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74234.

[4] Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, “Ukraine and the Problem of Restoring Maneuver in Contemporary War,” ISW, August 12, 2024, 17, https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-and-problem-restoring-maneuver-contemporary-war.

[5] Wilson C. Blythe, “A History of Operational Art,” Military Review, November-December (2018), https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/November-December-2018/Blythe-Operational-Art/.

[6] David Johnson, “Would We Do Better? Hubris and Validation in Ukraine,” War on the Rocks, May 31, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/would-we-do-better-hubris-and-validation-in-ukraine/.

[7] “Ukraine’s commander-in-chief on the breakthrough he needs to beat Russia,” The Economist, November 01, 2023, https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/01/ukraines-commander-in-chief-on-the-breakthrough-he-needs-to-beat-russia.

[8] Sergei Valchenko, “СВО и революция военного дела. Новое оружие меняет характер боевых действий и заставляет переписывать учебники тактики,” Армейский Стандарт, January 31, 2024, https://armystandard.ru/news/2024129114-TnO1s.html.

[9] Makhmut Gareev and Vladimir Slipchenko, Future War, (Fort Leavenworth: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2007), 61.

[10] Ibid., 63.

[11] Roger N. McDermott and Charles K. Bartles, “Defining the ‘Special Military Operation’,” Russian Studies Series, 5, https://www.ndc.nato.int/research/research.php?icode=777#_edn6.

[12] Ruslan N. Pukhov, “From “Special” to “Military”. Lessons from Two Years of the Operation in Ukraine,” Russia in Global Affairs, April 01, 2024, https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/from-special-to-military/.

[13] See, for instance, Mikhail Hodarenok, “Прогнозы кровожадных политологов,” Независимое Военное Обозрение, February 03, 2022, https://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2022-02-03/3_1175_donbass.html; For a summary of Colonel Hodarenok’s and Colonel-General Ivashov’s articles in English see Roger N. McDermott, “Did Russia’s General Staff Miss Warnings of a Hard Campaign in Ukraine?” RUSI, May 10, 2022, https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/did-russias-general-staff-miss-warnings-hard-campaign-ukraine.

[14] Oleg Tukmakov, “Основные направления совершенствования военно-политической работы при подготовке операций,” Военная Мысль, 2.

[15] Aleksandr Kalistratov, “К вопросу о «позиционном тупике»,” Армейский Сборник, 9 (2024), 191.

[16] Pukhov, “From ”Special”,”It must be noted that it was steady attrition that enabled Ukrainian forces to liberate the Kharkiv region in a fast manoeuvre, and it is doubtful that Ukraine could have carried out an operational breakthrough in the Zaporizzhia region despite the more favourable circumstances in 2022. Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman, “Ukraine’s Strategy of Attrition,” Survival 65, no. 2 (2023), 11.

[17] Idem.

[18] Konstantin Sivkov, “Крах «Цитадели — 2.0»,” Армейский сборник, 4. (2024): 8.

[19] See for example: Evgeny Pozdnyakov, “Активная оборона России истощила ВСУ,” Взгляд, November 01, 2023, https://vz.ru/society/2023/11/1/1237887.html and Sergei Poletaev, “Об искусстве специальной военной операции,” Russia in Global Affairs, November 08, 2023, https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/ob-iskusstve-svo/.

[20] Kalistratov, “К вопросу,” 192.

[21] “«Активная оборона» войск РФ признана эффективной,” Независимое Военное Обозрение, December 07, 2023, https://nvo.ng.ru/nvoweek/2023-12-07/2_1265_nvoweek.html.

[22] “Ukraine’s commander-in-chief on the breakthrough he needs to beat Russia,” The Economist, November 01, 2023, https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/01/ukraines-commander-in-chief-on-the-breakthrough-he-needs-to-beat-russia.

[23] Konstantin Sivkov, “Крах «Цитадели — 2.0»,” Армейский сборник, 4. (2024): 8.

[24] Kalistratov, “К вопросу,” 191.

[25] The Pentagon only began to recognise the revolutionary impact of high-precision weapons on warfare after the Office of Net Assessment, founded in 1973 by the Department of Defence, and Andrew Marshall, who headed it until 2015, drew attention to the Soviet military scientific discourse on the revolution in military affairs and used Soviet ideas in their work. Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010) 69-74.; Roger N. McDermott, “Russian Military Thought on the Changing Character of War: Harnessing Technology in the Information Age,” Jamestown Foundation, October 29, 2021, https://jamestown.org/program/russian-military-thought-on-the-changing-character-of-war-harnessing-technology-in-the-information-age/.

[26] David J. Betz, “Russian fortifications present an old problem for Ukraine,” Engelsberg Ideas, July 20, 2023, https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/russian-fortifications-present-an-old-problem-for-ukraine/.

[27] Eric D. Hutchings, “Conducting the Breakthrough: Unnecessary Operation or U.S. Doctrinal Void?,” (Fort Leavenworth: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1991) 2, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA240176.pdf.

[28] David Glantz, The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union, (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 194.

[29] Lester W. Grau, “Soviet Non-Linear Combat: The Challenge of the 90s,” Soviet Army Studies Office, (September 1990), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA231789.pdf.

[30] Lester W. Grau, Charles K. Bartles, “Russian Future Combat on a Fragmented Battlefield,” Infantry, 110. no. 3. (2021): 11.

[31] Kalistratov, “К вопросу,” 190.

[32] Benjamin S. Lambeth, Desert Storm and Its Meaning. The View from Moscow, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1992), 68.

[33] Sergei Chekinov and Sergei Bogdanov, “The Nature and Content of a New-Generation War,” Military Thought, 10.

[34] Mahmut Gareev, “Доклад. Опыт Великой Отечественной войны и итоги работы Академии военных наук по дальнейшему развитию военной науки,” Bестник Академии военных наук, 2 (2015), 24.

[35] Sergei Pechurov, “Газета “Красная Звезда” о новой книге ЦАСТ “Алгоритмы огня и стали: оружие современных войн”,” February 09, 2024, https://vpk.name/news/824152_gazeta_krasnaya_zvezda_o_novoi_knige_cast_algoritmy_ognya_i_stali_oruzhie_sovremennyh_voin.html.

[36] Kalistratov, “К вопросу,” 192.

[37] Sergei Rizhikov, “Направления развития теории и практики преодоления минно-врывных заграждений на основе опыта, полученного в современных военных конфликтах,” Военная Мысль, 4 (2024), 58.

[38] Ibid., 60-63.

[39] “Top general tells Putin how Russia repelled major Ukrainian attack, defence ministry says,” Reuters, June 08, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/top-general-tells-putin-how-russia-repelled-major-ukrainian-attack-defence-2023-06-08/.

[40] Romanchuk and Shigin, “Перспективы,” 24.

[41] Ibid., 24-26.

[42] Krisztián Jójárt, “The war against Ukraine through the prism of Russian military thought,” Journal of Strategic Studies, (2024), 18, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2024.2414079.

[43] Michael Kofman, “Assessing Russian Military Adaptation in 2023,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 08, 2024, https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/assessing-russian-military-adaptation-in-2023?lang=en.

[44] Kalistratov, “К вопросу,” 193.

[45] Ibid., 189.

[46] Ibid., 193.

[47] Ibid., 189.

[48] V. I. Orlyansky, A. A. Gerasimov and E. V. Bitner, “Проблема маневра войсками в условиях применения противником современных разведывательных систем,” Военная Мысль, 8. (2024) 27-28.

[49] Olha Kyrylenko, “Infantry war at Pokrovsk: why Ukraine’s key eastern front started (and continues) to crumble,” Ukrainska Pravda, September 17, 2024, https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/09/17/7475408/.

[50] Dmitry Holuyenko and Viktor Anohin, “Развитие форм совместного применения группировки сил и средств при дезорганизации управления противника,” Военная Мысль, 9. (2023), 48-50.

[51] Vladimir Orlyansky, Vladimir Gerasimov and Sergei Rudenko, “Проблема маневра войсками в условиях применения противником современных разведывательных систем,” Военная Мысль, 7. (2024), 49-50.

[52] Holuyenko and Anohin, “Развитие,” 50.

[53] Ibid., 47.

[54] Vyacheslav Kruglov and Vladimir Voskresensky, “Системная функциональная модель вооруженной борьбы,” Военная Мысль, 12. (2023) 40.

[55] Olha Kyrylenko, “Infantry war at Pokrovsk: why Ukraine’s key eastern front started (and continues) to crumble,” Ukrainska Pravda, September 17, 2024, https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/09/17/7475408/.

[56] Kruglov and Voskressensky, “Системная,” 40.

[57] Sergei Dudko, Aleksei Moraru and Aleksei Smelov, “О повышении эффективности управления воинскими формированиями тактического звена,” Военная Мысль, 7. (2023), 55.

[58] P. A. Dulnev, A. P. Kolesnichenko and A. V. Kotov, “К вопросу об интеллектуализации управления общевойсковыми формированиями тактического звена,”  Военная Мысль, 7. (2024) 89-91.

[59] Alex Vershinin, “The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine,” RUSI Commentary, March 18, 2024, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/attritional-art-war-lessons-russian-war-ukraine.