Until this week’s battlefield advances around Robotyne and the breaching of at least one of Russia’s major defensive lines, Ukraine had been the target of outside criticism. Some of it was warranted, and much of it not. Still, Ukraine released a video yesterday firing back at critics, claiming, “Everyone is now an expert on how we should fight. A gentle reminder that no one understands this war better than we do.”
It might help Ukraine to get that off their chest, but as Russia starts jailing its online critics, it’s worth noting that criticism is part of operating in a free society.
Ukraine’s video is actually quite clever.
It points out how if they had listened to the “experts” in February 2022, they would no longer exist. It ends with, “But we need ammunition, not advice.”
It is, however, an odd message to deliver. Yes, it must be infuriating reading stories featuring unnamed officials saying stupid shit like, “Pentagon officials have also urged Ukraine to rely less on drones for battlefield awareness and more on ground reconnaissance forces,” which is so patently absurd that we have to pray The Washington Post reporter simply wrote down the quote incorrectly.
Then there’s the deafening chorus of “the counteroffensive is moving too slowly” whines. Too slowly according to … who? Yes, pre-counteroffensive expectations were too high, and I was one of those people raising them … and also trying to temper them. “There are two camps emerging. The first urges caution, arguing that combined arms warfare is incredibly difficult in the best of circumstances, and Ukraine is dealing with freshly formed units operating unfamiliar equipment. The other camp sees rank Russian incompetence and assumes a cakewalk,” I wrote on May 31. “It’s okay to hope for the latter, but it’s safest to assume the former, and to plan for it.”
My optimism was tempered by Ukraine’s lack of combined-arms capability, or the ability to have armor, infantry, artillery, engineering, intelligence, air support (drones), electronic warfare, air defense, and supply all work together in concert toward an objective. This little pre-counteroffensive video shook me—a small eight-man Ukrainian squad could’t coordinate with engineering support, while a surrounded Russian soldier in a trench fought to the death rather than surrender, despite multiple opportunities to do so. If Ukraine couldn’t coordinate two branches of its military at the squad level, how could it mount a real combined-arms effort at scale, with hundreds (if not thousands) of soldiers? And if this Russian soldier would fight to the death rather than surrender, why would we assume that their lines would collapse at first contact?
On the first major attack of the counteroffensive, Ukraine pulled a Russia—driving a column of armor straight into a determined Russian defense, in daytime (obviating their Western gear’s superior night vision optics), losing half a dozen vehicles, and ending the dream that Russian forces would flee in panic at first contact.
Military analysts Michael Koffman and Rob Lee spent several weeks embedded in the front lines, and came back with a sobering assessment of the situation, including the observation that “Ukrainian forces have still not mastered combined arms operations at scale. Operations are more sequential than synchronized. This creates various problems for the offense & IMO is the main cause for slow progress.”
The criticism was also coming from inside Ukraine, as Ukrainian intelligence officer Tatarigami_UA has consistently assailed the continued use of incompetent Soviet-era officers, unwilling or unable to learn more effective tactics.
This tweet packs a brutal punch:
While minefields and insufficient supplies from the West undoubtedly contribute to drawbacks, it is essential to recognize that failures in planning and coordination at the commanding stage above the brigade level lead to far more significant drawbacks. In any war or military operation, there are both competent and ineffective commanders.
However, the main question is whether we will draw conclusions based on the performance of certain generals or simply lay blame on the West and minefields. Whether the assault concludes in Crimea or elsewhere in the South, it’s vital to acknowledge both victories and failures and hold individuals accountable for serious shortcomings.
No amount of NATO training for NCOs and privates can compensate for the absence of similar training and the right mindset among certain senior officers.
To conclude, I would like to share a brief radio interception between Russian servicemembers that I heard almost a month ago:
– How is it going for you guys? Are you holding?
– Yeah.
– What about Ukrainians? What do you think?
– I have a feeling that their assault was planned by [Russian commanders] Gerasimov and executed by Muradov.
Incompetently planned and executed attacks don’t just cost Ukrainian lives, but strengthen Russian morale, making them even more likely to fiercely defend their positions.
In any case, after that first botched attack, two things happened: Ukraine realized it didn’t have the capability to take on the lines with combined-arms fashion, and focused on infantry advances that avoided Russia’s deadly mine fields, while their sappers manually cleared lanes for armor behind them. These were painfully slow advances, but they minimized the loss of life and equipment. The slow pace wasn’t a problem, either, as it gave time for Ukraine’s qualitatively superior tube and rocket artillery to pound the hell out of Russian defenses and logistics. Russia’s numerical advantage in artillery was systematically erased, with dozens of howitzers destroyed every single day.
It helped that Russia couldn’t bear losing any territory and counterattacked every loss, giving Ukrainian forces the chance to eliminate Russian soldiers and equipment out in the open, rather than digging them out of entrenched defensive positions.
Ukraine’s tactical adjustments were smart, and anyone complaining about that slow advance, despite the obvious degradation in Russia’s fighting capabilities, was certainly off base. On the other hand, it was perfectly reasonable to wonder why Ukraine was wasting one-third of its combat capabilities around the strategically insignificant city of Bakhmut. The obvious strategic goal is to cut Russia’s land bridge connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. It’s where Ukraine chose to focus its counterattack, and it’s where Russia layered its most extensive defenses. Ukraine is hitting that southern approach along three different advances. The westernmost is south of Zaporizhzhia, toward Melitopol in the Vasylivka direction (currently stalled), the big one in the middle toward Tokmak through Robotyne (where last week’s breakthrough gains took place), and the easternmost one in the Mariupol direction, through recently liberated Urozhaine.
Those Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut could be used in all those directions, or could even be used to open up a new advance around Vuhledar. All those approaches serve Ukraine’s core strategic goal, which is why Ukraine’s British and American military advisers have been urging Ukraine to refocus the bulk of their forces to the south. That is sound advice, and by all indications Ukraine has been receptive.
So again, it’s weird for Ukraine to now say, “We need ammunition, not advice.”
It’s also weird because the British-led training effort for Ukrainian troops graduates 2,000 soldiers per month, which is the size of a Ukrainian brigade. Germany and the United States are training Ukrainians on a variety of specialized equipment and gear, and the U.S. spent much of the winter training Ukrainian officers on combined arms maneuvers.
F-16 training is now getting underway. What is all that, if not “advice”?
Finally, there’s the headline proclamation: “Everyone is now an expert on how we should fight. A gentle reminder that no one understands this war better than we do.”
It’s true, no one understands their war better than they do. They’re doing the dying. But tactics matter, no one is infallible, and mistakes cost lives. Unfortunately, they can’t do combined arms warfare, but they still have a lot to learn from NATO commanders who have faced combat. The equipment and situation (particularly with air support) might be different, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have wisdom to share. Former NATO Supreme Commander Mark Hertling, who commanded a tank division in combat in Iraq, has a great thread on that point, noting that, “After boneheaded comments by ‘anonymous sources’ & commentary by mostly uninformed who have never seen combat, there’s been increasing back-and-forth about how @NATO shouldn’t “lecture” Ukraine’s army on anything re their offensive. IMHO, none of this is helpful.” Speaking of advice he received from mentor retired generals when he was leading in combat, he writes:
[M]ost of their advice I took, some I didn’t. But the mentoring shaped my decision-making. While I had been a soldier for 30 years, commanding several times in battle, I had never been a Division Commander in combat with all the responsibilities of that higher command. 5/
When I hear “NATO armies haven’t done these kinds of operations & [Ukraine’s top general Valerii Zaluzhnyi] has” I smile. Because truthfully, yes NATO has and no Z hasn’t. That isn’t meant to be contentious, or an insult to Zaluzhnyi. NATO has conducted large scale targeting, intel gathering… 6/
movement of forces, [reception, staging, onward movement, and integration of units], operational logistics, and headquarters staff planning and wargaming in training, exercises, and in combat. While GEN Zaluzhnyi is extremely talented, he has never before coordinated large scale offensive maneuver w/dozens of combat brigades. 7/
He is conducting kinetic operations (multiple deliberate attacks requiring intense combined arms breaches), while also synchronizing intel gathering/targeting, operational logistics for multi-domain operations of conventional, SOF, territorials, rear area insurgents,… 8/
…while moving reserves to the right place, integrating newly mobilized & trained forces, overseeing humanitarian relief and movement of non-combatants out of operational areas, etc, etc, etc. While executing multiple large scale deliberate attacks with breaches on…9/
…different axes over a 400-600 km front is tough enough, it’s just one of his tasks. It’s the other things that are a combat commander’s real headaches. Commanders don’t need nitpicking from cheap seats (the 1000-mile screwdriver), but he does needs advice & mentoring. 10/
That’s a lot to deal with, without even considering the political challenges! Zelenskyy likely has thoughts, and they may not always align with sound military strategy and tactics.
Look, I get it. People are always happy to tell me how I’m screwing up running Daily Kos, and how if only I did “X,” everything would be better. Much of that advice is unworkable, some of it would be a disaster, and some of it is actually helpful, but—and this is key—the vast majority of it is well-meaning. When people value something, they want you to succeed, and they care enough to share advice. That is not a bad thing!
No one on the outside is offering Russia advice, beyond “Get the hell out of Ukraine,” because no one cares. People care about Ukraine, and getting well-meaning suggestions is not a bad thing. It comes with the territory, and you want those people engaged. Indeed, their political support is critical to maintain the tens of billions of dollars from allied countries flowing into Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine has the final say anyway. The peanut gallery might be obnoxious, but it has no real power.
Sometimes, it even makes sense to respond to the critics. When people (like me) wondered why Ukraine was bleeding so much for the strategically irrelevant city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained that it wasn’t just bleeding Russia dry, but if Russia took Bakhmut, they would simply devastate the next city down the road. The jury is still out if that was the wisest course of action, but the explanation had logic. As far as I know, Ukraine hasn’t explained why it is so obsessed with regaining territory around Bakhmut. We can guess and speculate, but the absence of an explanation merely invites more scrutiny.
What is the alternative to tolerating criticism? Russia has just arrested a blogger for criticizing his country’s war effort. “Andrey Kurshin, who runs the Telegram channel Moscow Calling, has been arrested in Moscow. State news agency TASS reports, citing a source in law enforcement, that the Russian authorities have opened a criminal case on spreading “fakes” about Russia’s Armed Forces against Kurshin,” reported the exiled Russian news outlet Meduza. “Independent news outlet iStories writes that Kurshin fought for the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” under the call sign Moskva in 2014–2015. He later adopted a more moderate position and started the Moscow Calling channel, which covered hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.”
Russia doesn’t handle contradictory “advice” very well. Heck, 17 of the 18 original 2014 leaders of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” are now dead, and the last one, war criminal Igor Girkin, is under arrest for criticizing the war effort. Don’t be surprised if he ends up poisoned before going to trial.
Ukraine has turned away from Russian-style repression, toward Western-style freedom. Putting up with critics, even the dumbest ones, is part of the price of admission. And it’s fine; Ukraine will be okay.
This is a brutal and explicit video from a Ukrainian drone unit of hits on Russian infantry on the defensive line. It bears noting just how much effort it’s taking to root out entrenched Russians defending that line. But also, note that what the drones are doing here is literally closer-air support.
For all the talk that Ukraine can’t do combined arms because they lack airpower, the fact is that they absolutely have air power. It’s just different than what we’ve seen in every other war. Neither side has air superiority, and neither will ever gain it. So drones have filled that gap, and have become the most effective way to destroy each other’s equipment and soldiers.
