Reflections On The Military Aspects Of The War In Ukraine

A week into the active fighting in Ukraine, it is possible to make some meaningful assessments of the conflict from a military perspective.

The biggest point, by far, is that unexpectedly, despite being outnumbered and having far fewer major military systems and far less military equipment, Ukraine has not yet fallen to Russia's invasion. 

Russia's Military Has Underperformed

Ukraine has not fallen yet, mostly to an underwhelming performance by the Russian military, and secondarily, to a more robust than expected Ukrainian defense of its territory. Still, Ukraine remains an underdog in this conflict. 

Obvious Screw Ups

Perhaps most glaringly, many Russian military vehicles has literally run out of fuel en route to Ukrainian cities, have gotten lost using outdated maps, and have been impaired by shortages of food. Some of the rations that they do have are spoiled. Russian military logistics and attention to the basics has been abysmal.

Keep in mind that Russia is the most oil rich country in Europe, whose international trade is dominated by its sales of oil and natural gas to the rest of Europe. 

Russia is also at least as rich, on a per capita basis, as Ukraine, although oil and natural gas wealth, and concentration of Russian wealth in the hands of a new class of oligarchs and kleptocrats, overstates the relative edge that Russia's other 99% and Russia's non-natural resource core economy over Ukraine.

Less Obvious Screw Ups

Other short fallings of the Russian military have been less obvious without insight from military experts, but also very basic.

While the initial Russian strike against predominantly military targets across Ukraine on February 24 was made up mostly of guided missiles, Russia has used few guided missiles and "smart bombs" since then. In contrast, the U.S. has used guided ordinance almost exclusively for the last twenty years and hasn't used as small a proportion of guided missiles and bombs in active conflicts since twenty-five or thirty years ago. This may be because Russia has limited supplies of guided munitions because it couldn't afford to purchase large volumes them (which are more than ten times more expensive than unguided rockets, shells and bombs) and has used up much of its available supplies of guided munitions in other small wars it has fought in Syria and in former Soviet Republics.

Russia has failed to secure complete air superiority in Ukraine in a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEADs) campaign at the outset, leaving Ukrainian jet fighters in the air to oppose it and leaving Ukraine with some significant anti-aircraft resources. Dozens of Russian fighters and military helicopters have been shot down by Ukrainian forces, partially through the efforts of Ukrainian fighter pilots that have produced some new "aces" (i.e. pilots with five or more enemy kills), and partially through anti-aircraft weapons, both some surviving major anti-aircraft missile systems and infantry carried MANPADS, which are light anti-aircraft missiles like the "Stinger" missile that has been in use around the world since the 1980s.

Possibly, in part, because Ukrainian air defenses have not been fully suppressed, Russia has deployed only a small fraction of its roughly three hundred advanced military aircraft in the region. 

Russia has also not used aircraft to provide the degree of close air support that Western military forces deployed in places like Iraq and Afghanistan have come to expect as the norm.

Intelligence sharing from Western allies (especially the United Kingdom and the United States) who declined to put "boots on the ground" in the conflict has also reduced the importance of Russia's successful destruction of Ukraine's early warning system radar at the outset of the conflict.

Lots of the tanks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers that Russia has deployed are thirty year old vehicles, even though Russia has designed and built more modern ones which have inexplicably not been fully deployed in this conflict.

A basic principle of fighting with armored vehicles like tanks is that they need to be deployed in connection with dismounted infantry to resist enemy infantry with resources like modern anti-tank missiles - which are about the size and weight of a golfer's bag full of golf clubs - and less sophisticated rocket propelled grenades. Instead, Russian infantry have been reluctant to leave deceptive sense of security they have when they stay inside the armored personnel carriers that have brought them to the front. This has made Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers, and mobile artillery vehicles vulnerable to attacks from Ukrainian forces (who have been bolstered with advanced anti-tank weapons supplied by allies, most notably, by the United Kingdom).

Russian forces have advanced, convoy-style towards major Ukrainian cities single file in large, dense convoys on major Ukrainian highways.

As I footnote, my Facebook account was disabled for a few days for "violating community standards" related to threatening violence against real people, when I suggested in a comment that Western military forces used their air power to do what this not censored meme implies, after previously being cited for posting memes that observe that many U.S. companies raising their prices and claiming that this is due to inflation are simultaneously making record profits and paying record high amounts to their CEOs (both at greater rates than inflation).

Even supposedly elite Chechen armored units led by a storied warlord turned general from Eastern Russia has apparently seen its tank column decimated with its general killed, as a consequence of this kind of tactically thoughtless convoy-style deployment on major roads.

There are reports that a contingent of Russian marines has defied orders to deploy into southern Ukraine from a base in Crimea.

Russia's Military Seems Ill-Trained And Hollow 

Until now, there has really been no reason to doubt the competence or capabilities of the Russian Army and Air Force which have fought effectively with seemingly modern and effective equipment in a variety of insurgencies and small military engagements in countries that were formerly a part of the USSR and in Syria.

Vladimir Putin's rule has been characterized by what has been touted as and perceived internationally as restoration of the Russian military's professionalism and upgrading of its equipment to more modern systems.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, casts serious doubts on this assessment, suggesting that its military is "hollow".

Part of the lack of use of air power by Russia may be due to the fact that Russian pilots without combat experience have had only the bare minimum amounts of training time to operate their warplanes and armed helicopters, let alone time spent training to coordinate with ground forces to support them. 

Part of the underperformance of Russian group troops may be due to the fact that about a quarter of Russian troops, even in supposedly elite "special forces" units and among low ranking non-commissioned officers, are eighteen or nineteen year old conscripts on one year tours of duty, with less than six months of post-training experience.

Part of this is due to the fact that Russia lacks a large corps of highly experienced career non-commissioned officers (e.g. sergeants) that are a backbone of Western military forces, leaving officers without the support of seasoned small team leaders and expert military system operators.

The average active duty enlisted soldier and sailors in the U.S. military is 27 years old and has a little less than seven years of experience, and many of those active duty military personnel have combat experience. The average Russian enlisted soldier appears to be younger, to have less experience, and to have never previously been in actual combat.

The dismal underperformance of Russia's military in its invasion of Ukraine, even if it ultimately prevails due to the sheer brute force scale of its military, suggests that Russia's senior officers are also far less competent than widely believed.

It could be that Russia's most competent military personnel are a small corps of mid-level officers who have been placed in charge of operations in its "small wars" using resources cherry-picked from the newest and most modern equipment available, against opponents with less modern military training and equipment than those it is encountering in Ukraine (Ukraine's supply of modern equipment has been boosted in part by infusions of modern military equipment from its European allies during the Russian buildup).

But, perhaps Russia's senior level officers are "past their prime" and lack the priorities and habits that come from participating in real world combat operations, and that it isn't possible to limit your forces to cherry picking the best military systems in your arsenal when fighting a conflict on the scale of Russian's Ukraine invasion. 

Russian Force Size And Casualties

The Russian military as a whole has 900,000 active duty personnel and 2,000 reserves (while Russian reserves have recently been called up, it appears that they are backfilling positions within Russia that have been left vacant as active duty troops have deployed for the Ukraine operation). Russia's military budget is about $43.2 billion U.S. dollars equivalent per year. 

Russia has a nuclear arsenal comparable to that of the United States, each of which have nuclear arsenals far greater than any other country in the world, which are easily capable of ending life as we know it on the planet in an apocalypse. Unlike the U.S., Russia is believed to have small tactical nuclear weapons intended for use in circumstances other than an all out mutual assured destruction (MAD) nuclear war.

There are reported to be about 60,000 to 150,000 Russian troops in Ukraine. One source says about 82% of the troops that built up near Ukraine leading up to the invasion of entered Ukraine now.

Estimates of the number of Russian soldiers killed have ranged from about 2,000 to about 5,300 in the first week, with more Russian soldiers wounded. Russia claims that it has about 2,100 casualties, but that only about a quarter of those are deaths, with the remainder being serious injuries. U.S. intelligence experts estimate that about 1,500 Russian soldiers have been killed.

The percentage of Russian soldiers deployed into Ukraine who have been killed is more than 1% but less than 10%, and is probably at the low end of that range (perhaps 1.5%).

About 400 Russian soldiers were killed in its military operations in Ukraine in 2014. Thousands of Russian soldiers were killed in the Chechen counterinsurgency operation. About 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed in its occupation of Afghanistan (compared to 2,500 U.S. soldiers killed in its 20 years in Afghanistan).

Ukrainian forces, combined with Russian military logistics incompetence, have neutralized at least six hundred Russian armored personnel carriers, more than 140 Russian tanks, several dozen Russian mobile artillery vehicles, a couple dozen Russian military helicopters, and more than a dozen Russian fixed wing warplanes. 

It isn't clear how many armored personnel carriers, tanks, mobile artillery units, military helicopters, and fixed wing warplanes Russia has deployed in its invasion of Ukraine, but certainly, these losses are significant.

The Russian military as a whole has 2,840 main battle tanks, although it isn't clear how many have been deployed in this operation. Certainly, however, far, far less than its total fleet of tanks has been deployed to its invasion of the Ukraine, implying that far more than 5% of the tanks Russia has deployed have been neutralized in the first week of the war.

The Russian air force has 185 jet fighters designed for air to air combat and 415 ground attack warplanes, and it has been reported that it has about 300 fighter aircraft of both types combined (about half of its total air force resources) deployed close to Ukraine. Only a modest fraction of them appear to have flown missions into Ukraine. This implies that about 5% of Russia's fighter aircraft in the region, and a far greater percentage of the fighter aircraft that Russia that have flown sorties in Ukraine, have been shot down.

Russia's navy, worldwide, is rivaled only by that of the larger U.S. navy, and the comparable Chinese navy. It has one aircraft carrier, 4 near-battle ship class cruisers, 11 destroyers, and 15 frigates, as well as 49 armed submarines.

Only a few of Russia's surface warships are in the Black Sea. There are probably no Russian armed submarines in the Black Sea. These Russian navy ships fired a few of the missiles in the opening salvo of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and overwhelmed at least one, and probably several, Ukrainian border guard positions very early on. There have been no Russian navy military casualties.

Ukrainian Force Size And Military Casualties

Ukraine reportedly has about 100,000 fully trained and equipped soldiers, although another source stated that before the conflict that Ukraine has 209,000 active duty military personnel and 900,000 reserve troops.

In terms of major military systems, immediately prior to the conflict Ukraine reportedly had 858 main battle tanks, a navy with just one ship of frigate size or larger and no armed submarines, 71 air to air combat capable fighter aircraft, and 14 ground attack fighter aircraft. Some of Ukraine's navy was destroyed in connection with the 2014 Russian military capture of Crimea. Ukraine's military budget is about $4.3 billion U.S. dollars equivalent per year. 

Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal to Russia when the Soviet Union broke up.

Ukraine also has another 100,000 hastily armed and fielded, but minimally trained, militia members. It militia is made up of ordinary (mostly) Ukrainian men and women. 

The Ukrainian militia forces have been far more effective in protecting their homeland than their counterpart Russian conscripts with little experience but full military training have been in invading it. Some of the over performance by Ukrainian militias may come from having life experience (and most adult Ukrainian men are military veterans due to long standing conscription requirements) than Russian conscripts do. Some of the over performance by Ukrainian militias may come from familiarity with the theater of battle which is their home which the Russian forces have mostly never encountered before. Some of the over performance by Ukrainian militias may come from the fact that they are volunteers in a life or death fight to preserve their homeland, while Russian conscripts don't want to be there and have no personal stake in the fight other than to survive it and hence have no incentive to take any avoidable risks.

I have seen almost no reports on Ukrainian military casualties or on destruction of Ukrainian major military systems, other than reports that Ukraine's early warning system radar have been destroyed, that many of Ukraine's surface to air missile batteries have been destroyed, and that runways at many of its air bases have been damaged. Presumably, significant numbers of Ukrainian aircraft were destroyed on the ground. Presumably, many Ukrainian tanks and armored personnel carries and artillery units have been destroyed.

Russia claims that it has killed more Ukrainian soldiers than they have killed Russian soldiers. This would be unsurprising, if true, but is hard to evaluate since Russia is not a credible source of information on this question and Ukraine isn't releasing information on the casualties that it has suffered to the public, presumably, in order to help preserve morale and for strategic military reasons. U.S. intelligence experts estimate that about 1,500 Ukrainian combatants have been killed.

If Russia has killed 3,000 to 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers and militia members, this would be 1.5%-3% of Ukrainian military personnel. If 1,500 have been killed, it would be less than 1% of the Ukrainian force, a lower percentage than the Russian force (in part, because not all of the Ukrainian force is located where combat has occurred so far).

Civilian Casualties and Refugees

The number of Ukrainian civilians reported killed so far has been on the order of 400 to 600, which intuitively seems as if it is probably greatly underreported given that the Russians have heavily shelled and bombed Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, with highly inaccurate unguided artillery fire and aircraft dropped unguided bombs, and have engaged in significant rather indiscriminate shelling that has destroyed government offices and civilian facilities in the capital of Kyiv (including residential areas), and in northern, eastern, and southern Ukraine.

Honestly, I would be surprised if the number of civilian casualties to date in Ukraine doesn't turn out to have been in the thousands.

Property damage in Ukraine to infrastructure, government buildings, and civilian buildings has been immense, especially in Ukraine's second largest city.

It almost goes without saying, but there have, of course, been essentially no civilian Russian or Belorussian casualties, and essentially no military damage to Russian or Belorussian property, although global economic sanctions have had a catastrophic impact on the Russian economy.

More than 600,000 Ukrainians have fled to other countries and the number is expected to eventually exceed 4 million out of a population of 43.7 million people, mostly women and children. Prior to the buildup of Russian forces, about 2.6 million Ukrainians lived in Russia, and it isn't clear home many are still there.

More than 40% of Ukrainians have relatives in Russia, and many Russians have relatives in Ukraine.

Future Prospects

The overwhelming shock and awe show of force with which Russia's attack commenced, and the limited supplies of fuel, food, and precision munitions of the Russian forces suggest that Russia's "Plan A" had been to conquer and control Ukraine almost immediately before it had time to resist, and to install a puppet government, with its conquest a fait accompli by the time that Western powers had a chance to react.

By putting off its fall by a week already, Ukraine has given the international community time to impose unprecedented economic sanctions upon Russia and has convinced its international allies that the fight for Ukraine's independence is not futile. The longer Ukraine can continue to fight, the better the prospects are for Russia to accomplish fewer of its goals.

Even if Russia were to seize and hold Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, it is increasingly unlikely that it could secure control of Ukraine as a whole. Instead, it would face an insurgency across Ukraine from a population that has recently been flooded with military grade weapons by its government and has support from most of the other countries in Europe.

Russia has plenty of experience fighting counterinsurgency actions, but none on this scale where the regime in force is so well armed and its regime, if installed in the capital, would have so little legitimacy and voluntary compliance with its orders. Certainly, the force Russia has currently assembled to invade Ukraine isn't enough for it to maintain control of Ukraine with sheer military force in the vast areas that don't have Russian ethic majorities. 

While the international community may be cowed by Russia's threat to use nuclear weapons against any outside country that intervenes, Russia has shown no likelihood of using strategic nuclear weapons in Ukraine so far to respond to Ukraine's own self-defense efforts, to respond to the global economic sanctions it is facing, or to respond to Western efforts to supply Ukraine with advanced military weapons systems. It also isn't entirely clear that lower level Russian military forces in charge of Russia's nuclear arsenal would obey Putin's orders to fire strategic nuclear weapons for only that provocation if Putin did issue those orders.

One plausible reading of the situation, that assumes that the Russian military is not quite as incompetent as it seems, is that Putin's plan was to give a "good college try" at a quick takeover of Ukraine as a whole, if it could secure a quick surrender, but that this was not the main plan. 

Instead, Putin's primary plan may have been to "bloody the nose" of Ukraine enough in a basically futile effort to take over the whole country, that Russian could secure a treaty in which it is awarded international recognition for its annexation of Crimea and occupation of some portion of Eastern Ukraine with Russian ethnic majorities, and perhaps a few other concessions, in exchange from withdrawing from the rest of Ukraine and ceasing hostilities. Some variation of this outcome still seems like a likely endgame in this conflict.

It makes more sense that Russia would not be putting forward its "A game", if Putin had assumed from the outset that the odds that its invasion would not be successful in securing control of the whole of Ukraine were great, and instead, merely intended to use the threat of doing so as a bargaining chip in diplomatic negotiations.

Putin may not have foreseen, however, the impact that a half-hearted invasion effort would have on the international perception of its military competence and hence its credibility in military power influenced negotiations going forward, or the magnitude of the international response, in the form of economic sanctions, to its actions. 

Putin may also not have foreseen the extent to which its invasion, and the economic pain that international sanctions will bring with it, will foment domestic opposition and harm Russia.

Footnote on Language and Spelling

Until 2022, it was almost universal practice, at least in American English, to describe the country called Ukraine as "the Ukraine" with a definite article, even though that is not something that is done outside the English language. But in this conflict this odd exception to the general rule for describing countries that applied to Ukraine has been dropped for some reason and I am following suit.

Also, until 2022, the style guides in most media sources referred to the capital city of Ukraine with the historic English language spelling of "Kiev." But, for some reason, media sources in this conflict have started using the Ukrainian spellings (romanized rather than in Cyrillic script) for cities in Ukraine, including its capital, which is now usually spelled "Kyiv." I am also following this practice now.