These are challenging – and suddenly quite deadly — days to be a general leading Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Three weeks after fighting, Ukrainian forces were outnumbered, outmatched and outgunned. They managed to keep Russian troops from advancing across their country which is roughly nine-tenths the same size as Texas.
A further problem for Russian strategy, and morale is that nearly twelve senior officers were believed to have been murdered, including five generals. Intelligence estimates also suggests there to be approximately 7,000 Russian dead.
In addition, unconfirmed reports say four more generals have been sacked back in Moscow over the poor showing of what is the world’s third-largest army, but has turned out so far to be the second-best in Ukraine.
Even the Ukrainian military was able to conduct a raid on an airbase with a nervy commando. Inside Russia. In Belarus next door, somebodies have been disrupting the signal systems of rail lines carrying supplies to Russia.
The largest ever armed conflict in Europe has taken place in the last 77 years. This has resulted in as many as four million refugees from a population of 44 million.
Presumably or hopefully, the Pentagon is up close studying Russian forces, strategies, the tactical preferences of certain senior officers, and the performance/weaknesses of equipment that NATO forces might someday themselves encounter.
How is it possible for Ukraine to resist such an invading foreign army, and also, how can they kill so many of their senior officers?
Retired, a senior U.S. General provided expert insights on Sunday. Former commanding officer for CentComm and the allied forces fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, It is important not to judge the strength of these military forces by their size.
Everybody wants to say, well, the Russians have, I don’t know, 200,000, and the Ukrainians have 100,000. It’s not so.
The Ukrainians have 100,000, plus every other adult, just about, in the country, all of whom are willing to take up arms or help in some way, even if it’s just jam radio signals or conduct vlogging.
Russians in Russia call and ask, “Do you realize how poor this is?”
Petraeus said the invasion has become “a stalemate, a bloody stalemate” and a war of attrition.
“It’s a stalemate on the battlefield, again, with lots of continued damage on both sides, lots of destruction, especially from the Russians,” he said.
“But there’s a battle of attrition, in a sense, between the will in Kyiv and the country and then between that in Moscow, and especially in the Kremlin, as their economy, their financial system, and all the rest of that is just collapsing.”
Why is this? General with 37-year Army experience, the general notes increasing pressures from Moscow and presidential anger.
These include conscripts’ inexperience, poor training, shoddy communications, and crucially a chronic lack of initiative in the lower officers’ ranks as they hesitantly or fearfully wait to be told what to do.
[Historical Note: When the Allies landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944, you may recall, there was a precarious period that day when the invasion could have been thrown back. Germans had an array of Panzers and reinforcements nearby.
But their commanders would not move without orders from Berlin. Hitler had slept in that day and no one wanted to wake him with bad news. By the time orders arrived, it was too late to end the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.]
Petraeus is back:
It is clear that the Russian (command-and-control) system has failed. They have had their communication jammed by Ukrainians. Their secure comms didn’t work.
They were required to only go on one channel. That’s jammable. And that’s exactly what the Ukrainians have been doing.
Russians have cell phones. Russia’s prefix was blocked by the Ukrainians. So that didn’t work. They then took down 3G. They are now literally taking cell phones away from civilians in Ukraine to allow them to communicate with each other.
That’s no sign of a well-oiled war machine.
Ukrainians are, naturally, fighting for their homeland. They are also receiving weapons and supplies from European democracies.
Barack Obama sent blankets, MREs and supplies to Ukraine after Russia annexed Crimea. Joe Biden is late for lethal arms supplies, just as he has often been when it concerns important policy.
Not until weeks into the invasion and after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s emotional address to Congress did Biden authorize $800 million in new arms and ammo. An NASCAR driver became frustrated by the government and began to buy one million rounds on his own.
Russian forces were built from conscripts of one year with little training. They are apparently misled about the mission and their reception.
Ukrainians report that the POWs claimed they were given instructions to be treated as liberators of fascist U.S. force. Some Russians may have surrendered without food or water and with no fuel. That indicates poor Russian logistics.
None of this, of course, predicts the fighting’s ultimate outcome, just the current predicament of what appears to be over-confident Russian forces, including Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s Army has about 900,000 active-duty troops, compared to 170,000 in Ukraine. The U.S. Army has 485,000 active-duty members while China’s People’s Liberation Army has almost 2.2 million.
Biden is visiting Poland and will then travel to Belgium for a NATO summit. Three European prime ministers risked their lives to provide in-person assistance in Ukraine last week.
Senior field commanders require a wide battle overview. They are usually not near the front fighting. Petraeus points out that a key problem in Russia is the lack of initiative by lower ranks, afraid of making mistakes. They are then beaten down by the weaker Ukrainian forces, who strike-and-run.
The column stops. The general, impatiently sitting in his armored vehicle or other vehicle is unable to move. He goes forward to find out what’s going on because there’s no initiative.
Again, there’s no non-commissioned officer corps. There’s no sense of initiative at junior levels. They will wait until they are told what to do.
You can’t go wrong. They have very good snipers. They’ve just been picking them off left and right. And they have confirmed at least four. We will also hear the fifth one, I believe.
It was exactly this that happened at Mariupol last Thursday. Major General Oleg Mityaev visited the area to determine what was preventing his troops from moving. He was saved by a sniper who had been trained to shoot at officers.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry released a photo identifying a body as the 48-year-old general, who did not appear to be suffering from lack of foodstuffs like his troops.
АЗОВ знищив генерал-майора окупаційних військ!
Хто з мечем до нас прийде, від меча і загине!
Слава Україні! pic.twitter.com/1mvLUYvNjk
— АЗОВ (@Polk_Azov) March 15, 2022
The American general added: “It’s very, very — very, very uncommon. It’s only the beginning three weeks. And these are quite senior generals.”
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