Brian M Downing
The Russian army is immense and well-equipped and backed by a large air force and cyber-warfare section. The war is only in its second week but thus far it isn’t going well. The military faces fierce urban battles and guerrilla warfare which in months to come will challenge its discipline and coherence. The army is deeply flawed by cultural antagonisms, leaders based on loyalty rather than professionalism, reliance on fear rather than camaraderie, and decades of inexperience. The army’s ability to wage war is diminishing in the Ukraine.
Ethnic homogeneity
The Red Army of World War Two comprised many ethnic groups of the expanses of the Soviet Union, from the borders of Europe across Central Asia to the Far East. It drew unity from the enormity of the Third Reich’s onslaught but Stalin mistrusted some groups. Chechens and Tatars were rounded up and sent off to remote regions. Many Ukrainians fought the German invaders, many others served with them.
The collapse of the Soviet Union brought independence for most non-Russian subjects. Russia today has fewer minorities, making Putin’s army far more homogeneous than Stalin’s. It’s free of the ethnic divisions of, say, the Afghan National Army which comprised Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik, and other groups. Similarly, tribal heterogeneity burdens most Middle Eastern armies, especially Saudi forces which despite all their equipment and training, have never done well in war.
Without a high degree of homogeneity, unit cohesion will be difficult. Soldiers will not trust soldiers next to them or officers commanding them. But there’s still a flaw in the Russian army.
Cultural split
Despite strong homogeneity, Putin’s army is rent by a serious division in its rank and file, due in large part to general conscription. There are two Russias. They did not get along in garrisons and they are not getting along in battle.
First, there is a traditional world, often from rural and working-class youths. They are believers in national myths of moral superiority vis-à-vis the decadent West, enduring military might, and the Motherland ever-threatened from abroad and within. They respect or revere Putin as a great leader in the tradition of Joseph Stalin and Alexander Nevsky. He rebuilt the economy and restored national prestige after the collapse of the 90s.
Officers and NCOs are respected for their shared beliefs and relationship to the leader and the power prestige he embodies. To them, Russia is under attack once more by Western beliefs and morals, NATO expansion, and resurgent fascism.
That’s a sound ideological basis for a strong army, but a second world is in the army too. It developed with the Soviet Union’s fall and, paradoxically, Putin’s economic success (actually rising oil prices). Middle-class wealth and Gorbachev-era openness brought a new way of life. Young middle-class urbanites are in step with the West’s individualism, freedoms, products, and lifestyles. Despite their contributions in business, education, and the arts, they are expected to be mute, obedient subjects.
The division is clear on the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg, less so in the villages. It’s the most recent embodiment of Russia’s Slavophile versus Westernizer conflict which has marked Russian history since the days of Peter the Great’s reforms three hundred years ago.
Putin, unlike Soviet predecessors like Brezhnev and Khrushchev, has been tolerant of the second Russia, within limits of course. They are an unwelcome carryover from the Gorbachev era that Putin believed he could contain or rally to his side with public displays of manliness. Perhaps he thought war would win them over too.
The second Russia poses trouble inside the military, even in peacetime. The military conscripts thousands of them every month. They come into close contact with traditionalists. The live in the same barracks, eat the same rations, and go on the same exercises. Officers and NCOs have no prestige or legitimate authority, though they control their lives. Reverence for Putin is incomprehensible – increasingly so in recent weeks.
On the roads and towns of the Ukraine, after continuous ambushes and casualties, the authority of the NCOs is weaker, especially in units where sergeants have been killed or wounded. Casualties in elite units, comprised mainly or exclusively of traditional Russians, is shifting the combat burden onto less dutiful soldiers of the second Russia. Some elite units have already been mauled and may have to be taken off the line.
The split is deepening and slowing the campaign for the Ukraine. Desertions and infighting will increase as months pass and casualties mount. The two worlds might have united in a just war to defend Russia, but the Ukraine war is hardly that.
Next: the officer corps, authoritarian culture, and inexperience
©2022 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.