Transport & logistics


24 February Russia launches invasion of Ukraine


25 February Battle of Kyiv begins


1 March 40-mile-long Russian army convoy is spotted on the outskirts of Kyiv


2 March Russian army attempt to circle Kyiv to create a blockade


7 March UK Ministry of Defence claim Russian convoy “delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion”


11 March Some elements of Russian convoy break off and are deployed into firing positions


16 March US Department of Defense say Russian convoy remains stuck in place


22 March Ukrainian counter- offensive begins


29 March Russia’s military announces plan to pull out of Kyiv, recasting the invasion as the “liberation of the Donbas” in eastern Ukraine


2 April Battle of Kyiv ends as Russian forces withdraw


50


Point, or a student at Sandhurst, the results would be utterly predictable: those columns get chewed up.” If anything, Russia seems to have opted for intimidation over function. Instead of integrated brigades, divisions and armies adapted for a high- intensity land war, the invasion force was generated from battalion tactical groups. It’s a high-speed approach that allows the Kremlin to show strength without worrying the Russian public, and one that worked well in limited conflicts in Syria, Crimea and the Donbas. As Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations has explained, it’s also completely unsuited for picking a fight across the whole of Ukraine.


“Understanding geography and time-distance factors has almost become a lost art,” says Hodges. “This is a return to large formation movements, which we weren’t dealing with in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Deprived of the coordination structures of brigades and divisions, disconnected commanders and units quickly lose track of each other when things go awry. Supply lines stop moving and logistical capacity becomes irrelevant because no one knows what’s needed or where to go. Meanwhile, poorly integrated artillery, air defence and air force units have to rein themselves in to prevent friendly fire in areas of intense combat. It’s the ideal scenario for any opportunistic defender, and Ukrainian forces were only too happy to press their home advantage with drones and targeted ambushes. “A competent adversary is going to exploit every seam that you offer them, every miscalculation and bad assumption you make,” says Shlapak. “So, you need to be cautious about believing that your plan – which is dependent on exquisite levels of coordination and timing and executing everything to the nth degree of perfection – is going to work, because it’s not.” Looking forward, he’s concerned that the new US model of multi-domain operations could be difficult to sustain in an “intrinsically messy” war between capable powers. Working with other Nato nations might only exacerbate the problem. The organisation’s response force is itself a loose collection of battalions – as are the armies of many of its members in central and eastern Europe. Were they to be attacked, Hodges worries that support from forces prepared for high- intensity conflict may not reach the battlefield in time. “We still have a major problem in being able to move across Europe in peacetime conditions as fast or faster than Russian forces can move,” he warns. “There’s not enough rail capacity and it’s still too difficult to move heavy equipment around Europe.”


TikTok to H-Hour


Not that this Russian assault came as much of a surprise. It may not have been set up for war, but the large army on Ukraine’s borders gave the rest of the world a good idea that one could be imminent. As Hodges points out, the best strategic move would


have been to keep it there. The army was strangling Ukraine’s economy before it crossed the border – and could have collapsed Zelensky’s government right there – but even that would have taken costly logistics. “There were observers, including myself, who thought that the sheer size of the force was a very sound indicator that an actual invasion was coming,” says Shlapak. “As a signal, it was simply too expensive.” The preparatory manoeuvres Russian units carried out on the border also degraded their equipment – a particular issue for battalion logistics, as repair workshops are brigade and division level assets. Breakdowns have been a persistent problem since the invasion began.


Here, too, the Kremlin failed to appreciate quite how slippery and insurgent information can be. With footage of military movements now easy to record and share on social media, the security of a large- scale operation is harder to preserve than ever before. “It’s a lesson to all militaries that, in the age where everybody with a mobile phone is Walter Cronkite, the idea that you’re going to be able to sneak up on people is not supportable,” says Shlapak. “If you move large forces around in populated territory, you’re going to be seen. You have to plan to operate in that sort of information-dense environment.” Though Ukraine downplayed the risk of invasion, it was ready for what was coming. After Russia had telegraphed its intentions with hundreds of thousands of troops, landing a handful around Kyiv was no way to achieve its war aims.


That initial timidity led to a brutal war of attrition and, to return to Hodges’ apt term, a criminal campaign of siege and murder. Massing forces on the border might be expensive, but you can’t launch an invasion to keep costs down, no matter what you think of your opponent. Hodges is at pains to stress that no military has enough rockets or missiles to sustain the kind of intense urban combat currently shattering Ukraine – but he doesn’t think even a shortage of ammunition can stop the killing now. In war, incompetence bleeds all too easily into terror and suffering. Russia is much more comfortable weaponising that than Nato.


“Nobody should walk away from this thinking that Russia is not terrifyingly dangerous,” says Hodges, who already sees evidence that the Russian military is addressing the problems caused by its reliance on battalion tactical groups. “They’re not elegant – they’re brutal and they’re medieval – but they’re not stupid.” They may not mean to trap themselves in hellish situations, but they will capitalise on them any way they can. The forces that recently withdrew from northern Ukraine left a trail of torture, rape and murder in their wake. Lied to, let down and mistreated by their commanders, soldiers in Bucha massacred civilians. Putin’s giving them military honours for it. ●


Defence & Security Systems International / www.defence-and-security.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53