By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington D.C.) Heavy armor is on the way to Ukraine, and Feb. 3, the Pentagon announced yet another round of weapons and military support to Ukraine, including rockets, ammunition, transport vehicles, hand-held drones and cold weather gear in preparation for what many expect is an upcoming large-scale Russian offensive.
The Institute for the Study of War is citing Ukrainian intelligence officials saying that Putin is not only redeploying large amounts of weapons to areas of Eastern Ukraine, but has also specifically ordered the Russian military to capture Donetsk and Luhansk by March of this year. The ISW brief cites Ukrainian intelligence officials anticipating that Russia will need to “mass” its forces to a much larger extent to compensate for its inferior combat tactics, performance in war and faltering morale.
“Ukrainian Colonel Serhiy Hrabskyi stated that Russia does not have sufficient forces to conduct an attack along the entire 1,500km frontline in Ukraine and will concentrate its efforts on seizing Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts,” an ISW brief writes Feb 1.
Video Above: Ukraine schools, cultural emblems, museums, and health care facilities have been decimated by Russia
This Russian need to “mass” and heavily “outnumber” Ukrainian forces in order to advance or prevail aligns and make sense with respect to available casualty figures. Certainly it needs to be said that wartime casualty figures are very tough to get fully accurate exact information on given the nature of propaganda in war. Nonetheless, it does appear that the Russian-Ukrainian casualty discrepancy is massive, as available figures from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence report that as many as 129, 030 Russian soldiers have been killed during the war thus far, nearly five times the amount of publicly reported Ukrainian casualties. Ukrainian numbers seem potentially accurate, as a Pentagon news report from as far back as August of 2022 cites US officials estimating Russian troop loss/war dead soldiers in the neighborhood of 80,000. At that rate, which may have even increased, current numbers would likely be near or at what the Ukrainian ministry reports.
Public reports on Ukraine’s casualties vary considerably from roughly 15,000 war dead to 30,000, according to public reports from the BBC and a UK newspaper called UnHeard.
A report from several months ago in UnHeard says Ukraine has suffered 20,000 to 25,000 war dead, with injured an civilian casualties bringing casualty numbers close to 100,000, not including the thousands of Ukrainian citizens who continue to be killed as well. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also reports that Ukrainians have destroyed more than 3,000 tanks, 5,064 trucks and fuel tanks and nearly 2,000 Russian drones.
Certainly the Ukrainian destruction of incoming Russian mechanized forces such as tanks, infantry carriers and trucks is well known, in large measure due to Ukraine’s ability to halt and ultimately “destroy” Russia’s initial advance into Kyiv. A lesser known or observed reality, however, is the massive extent to which Ukrainians have killed Russian infantry, dismounted units and troop concentrations, has pushed the Russian war dead above 100,000.
Ukraine War Tactics
There are likely several reasons for this, with several being Ukraine’s fervor and intensity to “fight,” enterprising tactics and effective satellite and drone ISR enabling them to see and “target” concentrations of Russian troops. Ukraine has had effective NATO surveillance, and its own drones, for quite some time, so the arrival of longer-range precision rockets such as GMLRS and HIMARS have likely enabled Ukrainians to precisely target and destroy Russian troop formations, facilities, supply lines and forward bases.
Video Above: Russia Attacks Ukraine – Infantry Commander Analyzes Russian Tactics & Weapons
Alongside these likely variables, there is also the somewhat incalculable tactical effectiveness of Ukrainian infantry, forces who have used buildings, terrain, anti-armor weapons and “decentralized” or “disaggregated” formations to launch effective ambushes, hit and run attacks and targeted strikes on advancing Russian troops.
For instance, former Operation Iraqi Freedom Rifle Company Commander Lt. Col. Scott Rutter said the Ukrainians achieved an impactful tactical advantage by using bridges, crossroads, intersections and narrow passageways as key “chokepoints,” from which to launch attacks from hidden or obscured locations and destroy incoming Russian convoys, troops and vehicles. As a combat veteran and expert in infantry tactics and Combined Arms Maneuver, Rutter noticed that some of the tactics employed by the Ukrainians were similar to those used against his forces in OIF when they closed in on and destroyed the Iraqi Republican Guard in the famous Baghdad airport battles.
Why do Russian troops need to mass in such great numbers to advance against Ukrainian forces? A key and somewhat pressing question, given the wide ranging tactical success smaller numbers of armed Ukrainian fighters have had against both armored formations and dismounted troops. Certainly Ukraine’s pure “intensity” and “will to fight” has had a massive impact, and many observers have cited the somewhat unexpected success and effectiveness Ukrainian defenders have had with anti-armor weapons and dismounted infantry, given the massive disparity in casualty numbers. Poor Russian morale is also likely a large factor, given the number of anecdotal reports about Russian surrenders, vehicle “fleeing” and often a simple unwillingness to fight.
Interestingly, there is yet another critical element related to Russia’s tactical failure which can be trace to the warzone observations of Russian fighting techniques by WWII German generals who identified some of Russia’s long-standing tactical and strategic errors. A Feb 2, essay in the National Institute for Public Policy called “The Unchanging Nature of Russian Combat Methods” catalogs and articulates many observations made by German generals during their WWII invasion of Russia, including that, among other things, Russians were terrible at Reconnaissance.
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“The generals (German) noted that Russian i
nfantrymen were not “inquisitive” and as such, Russian reconnaissance was extremely poor.[10] They also noted that if reconnaissance elements met no resistance, Russian forces would plunge “…ahead into the unknown without further reconnaissance.”[11] This seems consistent with some early video of Russian reconnaissance units in Ukraine being surrounded, destroyed, or repulsed in the early days of the conflict even as major assault elements seemed blind to Ukrainian defenses,” James Lariviere writes in the essay.
Citing Russia’s WWII artillery practices, maneuver formations and “blanket” kinds of imprecise rocket attacks, Lariviere makes the significant observation that Russian generals may simply be making the same kinds of tactical errors it made in WWII during their current campaign in Ukraine. Poor reconnaissance would certainly put them at a huge disadvantage when it comes to anticipating or targeting Ukrainian ambush sites, making them vulnerable to absorbing large amounts of casualties. This point is reinforced in Lariviere’s reference to an Association of the United States Army study by Lt. Col. Amos Fox who points out that Russian reconnaissance in Ukraine has been almost “non-existent,” the same observation made by Nazi generals in WWII.
“Due to insufficient, ineffective or non-existent reconnaissance, advancing Russian BTGs (Battalion Tactical Groups) blindly and unwittingly impaled themselves during their push to take those cities.” Fox observes that this lack of reconnaissance caused advancing BTGs to move blindly into Ukrainian ambushes. In static or defensive positions, the BTGs have no indication of what is in front of them making them easy targets for Ukrainian attack. Like their WW II counterparts, Russian interest in reconnaissance continues to be poor,” Fox is quoted as writing in Lariviere’s essay.
The German generals cited in Lariviere’s essay also observed Russia’s indiscriminate or “blanket” artillery and rocket fire with no clear or specific target, something which has indeed held true during Russia’s Ukraine campaign as their Russian military commanders have killed thousands of civilians and children with deliberate “dumb” or imprecise artillery and rocket attacks on civilian neighborhoods, including schools and hospitals.
The Russian blanket use of “dumb” artillery could be described as a little surprising, given the advent of precision artillery in recent years. GPS and inertial measurement guidance technology has allowed commanders to migrate and evolve its tactical use of artillery from a pure “area” or suppressive weapon to enable troops to maneuver, into a specific ability to pinpoint targets with unprecedented precision. This technology emerged in Iraq in 2007 with the US use of GPS-guided 155mm rounds such as Excalibur. While Russia is widely reported to be low on munitions, there is certainly little question that they have precision weaponry and are technologically capable of precision targeting. Instead, they appear to have deliberately chosen to “area” bomb civilian populations and kill non-combatants and children. The UnHeard essay estimates Ukrainian civilian casualties as roughly 30,000, a huge but not surprising number.
These factors are likely key reasons why more US and NATO armored vehicles, tanks, rockets and precision fire are headed to Ukraine, however much more may be needed. Although successful with the ability to kill large numbers of Russian troops while suffering fewer casualties themselves, Ukrainian forces are still massively outnumbered and will likely need much more “mass” to ultimately prevail.
Video Above: What comes after the Abrams? Assistant Secretary of Army Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Talks Future of Tanks
For example, Ukraine will thus far be receiving a few hundred tanks thus far, including German Leopards and US Abrams tanks, yet Russia is listed on Global Firepower as being in possession of more than 12,000 tanks. While the Ukrainians have destroyed more than 3,000, and many of Russia’s tanks are likely old, Soviet-era platforms, they still exist in massive numbers compare to Ukraine. Certainly precision fires, rockets and “Blitzkrieg” style rapid advances penetrating through Russian lines can accomplish a great deal by seizing areas of terrain and destroying supply lines, wide area maneuvers will also be needed to truly reclaim and “hold” large amounts of previously held Russian territory. Sun Tzu’s famous quote from the “Art of War,” saying “mass matters,” may still hold true today to a certain extent, particularly given the vast amount of open area and expansive terrain in Southern Russia and Eastern Ukraine.
Therefore, will enough armor arrive fast enough? That may not be clear, yet Pentagon officials say Abrams tanks will be newly built or remanufactured for Ukraine. However, it may take more than a year for them to arrive in impactful numbers. What is significant about the two most recent Ukraine Aid Packages is that, among other things, they utilize the newly established Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative contracting vehicle for US industry to specifically engineer, produce and manufacture weapons for Ukraine. This not only decreases the strain placed on US weapons stockpiles and available equipment but also establishes a long-term method through which to provide ongoing support to Ukraine for what many expect may be a protracted war.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – the Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
