Ukraine “Adapts & Counters” Russian Combat “CounterMeasures”

by Logan Williams, Warrior Editorial 

Putin’s brutal, massacrous invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for nearly two years, and the Russian Army has made little progress. Until now, the courage of the innocent Ukrainian people, and their ability to make ingenious use of limited and infrequent Western arms shipments, has enabled the survival of the Ukrainian nation.

Much has been said, up to this point, of the “opportunity” that the Russo-Ukranian War poses for the United States and the West to demonstrate the capabilities of Western equipment, to identify the weaknesses in the performance of Western technology in relatively large-scale warfare, and to deplete Russian arms stockpiles. This strategy amounts to using the Ukrainian people’s nightmare as an opportunity to field-test the West’s arsenal.

Little has been said, however, about the opportunity for Russia to learn and adapt in much the same manner.

Just days ago, it was reported by the Eurasian Times that Russia had modified its KH-101, the Russian military’s most modern and troublesome air-launched cruise missile, enabling it to launch flares as a counter measure against Ukrainian air-defense systems. The KH-101 was already designed with stealth characteristics, giving it a radar signature of approximately 0.01m2, and which assist the missile in evading radar homing-based air defense systems, such as the United States’ Raytheon Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. These flares, however, are not intended to flummox the United States’ Patriot SAM system — rather, these are thermal decoys that are intended to degrade the capability of man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) based upon thermal homing (i.e., “heat seeking”) technology. These MANPADS, such as the United States’ FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missile, are singularly responsible for upholding the air defenses of northern Ukraine. Notably, the introduction of thermal decoys to the KH-101 platform also complicates the function of AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles (which use thermal homing guidance), one of the cheapest and most ubiquitous missiles in the United States’ arsenal, and which the United States as well as Ukraine have transformed from an air-to-air missile platform into a makeshift SAM air-defense system — in a project codenamed “FrankenSAM.”

Additionally, since the beginning of Putin’s invasion, Russia has revolutionized its battlefield tactics, in an effort to change the ever-worsening reality for Russian troops on the ground.

Russia has begun to use smaller combat units to probe Ukrainian defenses, in place of the battalion-sized waves that it had originally used at the war’s inception. These smaller combat units are filled with the most expendable of Russia’s infantry, usually convicts and conscripts, who are largely used as cannon-fodder, or as Retired Australian Army Major General Mich Ryan called them, “bullet catchers.” These initial waves are little more than desperate suicide attacks by poorly-trained and poorly-equipped troops, and they are indicative of the butchery that is characteristic within Putin’s army. The successive waves that follow represent an increase in combat experience and tactical importance. These are filled with less expendable troops, who attempt to capitalize upon any weaknesses in the Ukrainian defenses that were created by sacrificing the initial waves.

Additionally, Russia began to perform retreating defensive actions, in which the Russian troops vacated their defensive positions, and then as Ukrainian soldiers entered closed structures to clear the defensive positions, the Russian invaders would reduce those structures to rubble — using thermobaric explosives. These thermobaric explosives (also called fuel-air explosives) are an especially evident testament to the brutality of Russia’s war tactics. Thermobaric explosives function in two stages, the first detonation disperses fuel or incendiary powder which fills enclosed spaces and is often inhaled by any nearby personnel, and the second blast ignites the dispersed fuel, causing severe internal injuries and often leaving victims to suffer for several minutes before death.