Why Russia is losing the war: experts named the reasons for the success of the Armed Forces
Day by day, gradually and confidently, our defense forces are liberating the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine from Russian invaders.
ICTV Facts asked military experts about the main reasons for our successful operations. The questions were answered by Oleg Zhdanov, Mykhailo Samus, and Serhiy Grabsky.
The main factors of success of our defensive and offensive operations are motivated and prepared troops and wise leadership, capable of mastering and applying new methods of warfare. And Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyy and Chief of the General Staff Serhiy Shaptala are our lucky ticket in terms of the country’s defense capabilities, Oleg Zhdanov is convinced.
– Today, the AFU uses methods of warfare that the Russian Federation cannot even fully comprehend. For example: smashing or damaging the logistics system. By destroying supplies and the logistics system, we reduce the combat potential of advanced units.
And then a sudden breakthrough of the defense and a rapid advance into the depths of the enemy’s defense. We actually apply historical, I would say, methods of warfare, which our countryman and compatriot Nestor Makhno once developed,” says Zhdanov.
Zhdanov gives the Kharkiv offensive as an example of a modern approach to combat operations. In his opinion, it was a real strategic game in which our leaders beat the Russian General Staff. They made the Russians believe what was required of us.
– It was an information-psychological special operation that involved everyone, including the highest political leadership of the state. We managed to convince the General Staff of Russia that the main direction of the counteroffensive would be in the south.
The Russians dragged their most combat-ready and numerous units there and created a large group of troops on the right bank of the Dnipro. We had locked it practically into a trap. And then we found the weakest point in their defense and struck.
Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Zhdanov noted that today the Russians could not use the troops on the right bank of the Dnipro. He believes that the role of the information component is important in such a successful counteroffensive. Zhdanov is sure that Ukrainian media helped to implement the Kharkiv operation.
– In my opinion, the main factor here is the dosing and leaking of the information that was necessary for the benefit of the General Staff. They knew that the media would pick it up. And the main thing was to make it look very convincing. Which they eventually managed to achieve.
Deputy Director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies Mykhailo Samus believes that the main factors of successful actions of our troops are careful planning of each operation based on intelligence data and warfare.
– Our generals do not beat their heads against the wall like Russians. They fight against the same defensive positions for three months, simply destroying their personnel. They also use an incredible amount of ammunition, waging a war of the XX, possibly XIX century, not the XXI century. Our army is waging an asymmetric war because Ukraine cannot wage a symmetric war with Russia,” Samus said.
The Ukrainian army uses a model of reconnaissance and strike complex. Now it can be called a network-centric war. This principle, Mykhailo Samus reminds, has been known since the 50s of the twentieth century. Its essence is that all the Armed Forces should be a single complex with powerful and high-quality intelligence at all levels.
In addition to general information and analytics, intelligence provides accurate coordinates of enemy targets in real time. These coordinates are transmitted in real time to decision-making centers – to command posts in automated control systems.
– Of course, the information is transmitted only by modern communication systems. After all, without communication, a control system, and even excellent intelligence, the reconnaissance and strike complex does not work. And from the command posts, the coordinates of the enemy’s targets are sent almost in real time to the means of destruction, which must be highly accurate. And when all this works – we get the army of the XXI century. This is how the Ukrainian army operates today.
Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Samus is convinced we have very high-quality and powerful intelligence. And the military command adopts professional and creative operations at both the strategic and operational levels.
– At the tactical level, our commanders’ freedom of action allows them to achieve the objectives of the operation, but at the expense of how they understand the environment. It allows them to use their knowledge, avoiding the Russian Army’s problems. That crank, that kind of rigid vertical structure, prevents them from adapting and reacting more flexibly to changes in the environment.
Such waging of war is possible only with modern high-precision weaponry, which our partners provide us. The expert is convinced that we would have a very difficult time without their help in intelligence, communications, automated control systems, and armament.
Still, without high-precision weapons, drones, in particular, it would have been very difficult. Without HIMARS, which can destroy targets that are provided by our intelligence. It’s an ongoing process, but we manage to fight differently than the Russians.
The advent of HIMARS made a significant difference on the front. They began to be used to destroy command posts, ammunition depots, supply lines, logistics, and communications.
– All this was done so that the Russians didn’t have that reconnaissance strike complex, or communications, or command and control centers – that is, control systems. So that they would have no ammunition. Through such successful actions, the Ukrainian army achieves what we see. Because the liberation of populated areas is only the tip of the iceberg.
Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Military expert Serhiy Grabskyy highlights two main factors of successful defensive and offensive operations: our motivated Armed Forces and the modern weapons that our partners give us.
– Now, we can already say that at the cost of incredible losses and the incredible courage of our fighters in May and June, we managed to win a certain period to conduct full-scale training of our combat units. We are talking about the territorial defense and the volunteers who held back the front in the hottest phase of the war. This allowed us to prepare.
This is the first thing that is the motivation and combat training of the personnel. The second is the arrival of weapons that fit the offensive needs of our troops. Namely, multiple rocket launchers, artillery, armored vehicles, and aviation.
Our troops are destroying two bases on which the power of the Russian army is based, which is rigidly structured, Serhiy Grabskyy is convinced. The so-called “second world army” acts according to the provisions of the 20th-century operational art, he believes.
The Russian invaders are trying to hold the entire territory – by stretching all their troops along the line of contact. According to the expert, the Russians often slept through our troops’ concentration. And the Ukrainian troops, thanks to their perfect command and control system and interspecific cooperation, maneuver successfully.
– Our army conducts maneuver defense and produces a deeply echeloned network of combat positions. The Russians, following that pattern, create simple company positions and battalion positions, but again they can’t stretch out. So there are very few of them to create an echeloned defense.
Yes, they have more troops overall. But this number of troops is spread out along the entire front line. Or it is being used for unknown reasons in the area between Bakhmut and Mariinka to continue the offensive.
Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The Russians have announced a partial mobilization to renew their forces, says Grabskyy. But it’s unlikely to help them much. After all, even hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized men can do little without training. It takes at least six months to train them, which means not carrying out active combat operations for the same period, which Russia cannot afford.
Grabskyy cites the situation with the so-called Third Army Corps as an example. It was quite logically prepared and advanced from the depths of the Russian Federation. In a regular army, it should have been used as a separate operational unit. But it was simply torn to shreds, and they tried to patch up all the holes in the front with separate units.
– They decided to do it the way they were used to. That is, they use mobilization resources to make up for these losses and hold the situation together. There is such a precise definition: they don’t have soldiers, they have trench guards. This phrase fully characterizes what these “mobikes” are capable of. So far, they are not capable of conducting any serious offensive action.
Our troops are not yet able to conduct a full-scale and simultaneous offensive on the whole front. But we can create the conditions under which the enemy is no longer able to conduct any serious operations.
Grabskyy named two sections of the front where in the near future, our troops will be able to achieve some success: the Luhansk and Kherson regions.
– The first. We have already taken under fire control the Svatovo-Kreminna road. That is, we are, in fact, already operating in the territory of the Luhansk region. If we take physical control of this road, the defense of Severodonetsk will be very limited.
Screenshot: ISW
Second. We are making some progress right now. I will not name which settlements in the Kherson region. But this gives us reason to say that at least part of the Armed Forces operating on the right bank of the Dnipro may soon be surrounded. And will be destroyed. They cannot leave there. They will be physically destroyed.
