The Russian military doctrine and the mistakes the occupier made in the first phase of the invasion were also recently analyzed by the expert Scott Boston, a military expert at the RAND Corporation think tank, in an interview he gave to Business Insider. He is of the opinion that the huge cost that Russia is paying today after the invasion of Ukraine is a consequence of the non-compliance with its own military doctrine and the Russian commanders made frequent mistakes in the first stage regarding basic elements of military operations.
The Russians lacked force size based on mass army
At the same time, the Russians lacked an essential element to implement their doctrine: The size of the invasion force.
The Russian military doctrine is a development of the Soviet system and is based on mass armies, the expert points out, recalling that in the new military manual of the US Army, hundreds of pages are devoted to the way the Russians fight.
In 2008 the Russians implemented a set of reforms aimed at modern, Western-style combat. But after the failure of the invasion of Ukraine in the first months of 2022 they returned to the traditional system of mass armies.
“Many of the basic elements of this doctrine are sound enough to form a basis for successful military operations. But you just have to follow them”, says the expert. And the Russians didn’t.
For example, when a Russian division or brigade carries out an assault operation, the combat units must do it in stages, in waves. And closely coordinated with reconnaissance, flank protection, artillery and anti-aircraft defense elements. The goal is to be mobile, hit hard, and penetrate your opponent’s defenses to advance deep behind enemy lines.
But when Russia tried to capture Kiev in the famous three-day blitzkrieg, armored columns were sent through narrow and crowded roads. Roadblocked and ambushed, the Russians were decimated by Ukrainian artillery, drones and anti-tank missiles. And the coordination with military aviation, so vaunted in the past, was non-existent.
The result after two years of war is that the Russians recorded approximately 450,000 casualties, including wounded, and lost 3,000 armored vehicles. The best fighting units that invaded Ukraine in the first stage have been decimated since then.
Soviet plans to invade Europe were based on the mobilization of millions of Soviet soldiers under the Warsaw Pact.
The strategy of generating overwhelming mass remains essential and is in fact the basis of Russian military doctrine.
With an initial assault force of only 180,000 troops, on a front stretching over 1,000 kilometers and with four directions of attack, Russia could not generate that overwhelming mass in the first stage of the invasion. Russian leaders expected, as did many Western experts, that Ukrainian resistance would collapse immediately and Ukraine would be quickly occupied. Assault units were not even informed that the invasion was coming until shortly before it began.
In other words, the Russians did not have a plan B and this cost them. Military expert Boston gave the example of the invasion of Iraq: “In 2003 the Americans hoped that the Iraqi forces would not put up a fierce resistance, but the invasion plan assumed that this might happen. It would have been irresponsible for the US Army not to do so. But Russia’s plan has reached that level of irresponsibility.”
And yet the Russians recovered and adhered to their defense doctrine
The military expert admits that especially in the defense operations, the Russians followed the manual “to the letter”. This is demonstrated by the fact that they were able to successfully stop Ukraine’s counter-offensive last summer without the front line collapsing, as the Ukrainians had hoped.
In addition, Boston says the Russians have improved military doctrine in defense by increasing the depth and density of minefields, which is a new element.
The counterfactual question remains whether Russia would have been able to capture Kiev and possibly win the war in the early days of the invasion, had it followed military doctrine.
The answer is complicated, the military expert believes, but he is convinced that Russia had substantial advantages that it squandered because of the initial plan and the slow way in which they adapted.
If Russia had a different plan for invading Ukraine, a better plan and more adapted to the reality on the ground, things would have gone differently. “Much worse for Ukraine”, concludes Bolton who adds that the very good way in which the Ukrainians fought in the first stage of the invasion should not be underestimated either.
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Tags: written manual Russia military doctrine conquered Ukraine stage invasion
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