Brian M Downing
The view presented here in parts 1-3 is that the Russian army is flawed. Some 25% of its troops are poorly-trained and indifferently-motivated conscripts who do not fit well with dedicated regulars. Promotions from field grade to general staff are often based on political loyalties not professional standards, thereby weakening leadership up and down the chain of command. Harsh discipline enervates initiative and cohesion, both crucial in combat.
Western estimates indicate very high casualties – 2,500 killed each week. At this rate the army will have 20,000 dead and 60,000 wounded in just two months. Its ability to function will be severely reduced. Unit cohesion and morale will suffer, perhaps deteriorate. Particular aspects of the Russo-Ukraine War will further sap the army’s effectiveness.
Lack of progress
The army has gained little ground in the last two weeks. Analysts expected several cities to fall in the first week. (I did.) That hasn’t happened and Russian columns are stalled around Kiev and Kharkiv, though some progress has been made in the south. The war for now is stalemated. Soldiers are digging in. The absence of progress hurts morale and causes troops to ask questions. That became clear in the trenches of the First World War – on both western and eastern fronts.
Logistics
Early in the war, armor vehicles and trucks were running short of fuel, even though Russia is a major oil producer. Supply problems have worsened. Communication gear is absent or of poor quality. Troops cannot rely on field messes or ration packets and resort to foraging. Short of fuel and chow, soldiers don’t feel part of a competent organization. They feel cast off in a distant, hostile land.
Credibility gap
A chasm is opening in the minds of young soldiers between prewar expectations of war and hard realities in Ukraine. A chasm is inevitable as prewar ideas are typically naive and often nonsensical, as they were for German youths in All Quiet on the Western Front. The gap may now be wide and unbridgeable among many Russians, and an armistice isn’t in sight.
Soldiers were told of a quick war, bold drives into enemy territory, and civilians eager for liberation from a new Reich. The realities of war are disheartening. Ahead are well-defended cities and endless fighting with determined soldiers and citizens. Returning to family and neighbors is far off, if not a forlorn hope.
The judgment, competence, and concern of leaders come into question, from those in nearby command vehicles to the brass enjoying Moscow’s comforts. There’s nothing fitting or just about dying for your country in the mud of Ukraine. The war may produce its Wilfred Owen.
Casualties and leaders
Combat units are held together by strong senses of camaraderie, mutual trust, and respect for leaders. They are built only slowly. Combat strengthens or weakens them. Shils and Janowitz’s study of the Wehrmacht found that NCOs combined everyday fellowship with earned authority. They were critical to unity and cohesion, even late in the war when defeat was clear. Their loss was hard to replace. Without them, effectiveness suffered.
The Russian military doesn’t have the NCO strata that most armies have. The vital bridge linking officers and soldiers, management and workers, headquarters and the point, is absent. Casualties from drones, artillery, snipers, and engagements are reducing everyday what few unifying figures Russian units have.
Death from above
Each war brings novel miseries. The First World War had machine guns and poison gas, the Second mass bombings and armor thrusts, Vietnam insurgents and mines. The Russo-Ukraine War is seeing widespread use of drones and handheld missiles.
A Russian tank crew, on convoy or in bivouac, may look around at their heavy armor and formidable guns and feel confident even invulnerable. Without warning, a missile hits an adjacent tank, blowing the turret off and igniting the crew compartment. Similarly, command posts are being spotted, probably by electronic surveillance, and destroyed with missiles and artillery. Generals and colonels are taking high casualties, and so are enlisted personnel near them.
Soldiers expect fire and death – but from an enemy they can see across a field. There’s some equity in that. Each side has chances. There’s none of that when the missile comes from unseen soldiers or partisans a mile away or from a drone operated from a building on a distant base.
* * *
Cohesion in the Russian army, save for elite formations, isn’t nearly as strong as in the Wehrmacht or other Western armies and the Ukraine war is eroding what there is. Hardships will cause some soldiers to bind together more than ever and fight all the better. Others will will hesitate or refuse to follow orders, desert and hide in the woods for the duration or surrender outright, wound themselves to get home, or in rare cases turn on superiors. Grim realities in Ukraine may cause many, when the opportunity presents itself, in a village or city, to murder civilians as retribution for the deaths of friends and as some sort of wartime justice. It’s the most reprehensible disciplinary problem but not the rarest.
©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.