By Maj Gen PK Mallick, VSM(Retd)

In any military campaign, surprise and deception are always very crucial factors. Due to the continuous satellite coverage and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) resources, knowledge of Russia’s concepts of operation, the familiarity of terrain features etc. has made defence analysts like Seth Jones of CSIS envisage accurately Russia’s like courses of actions. This includes how the operations would unfold with a full-scale Russian offensive employing land, air, and sea power on all axes of attack. It was foreseen that Russia would establish air and naval superiority. Some Russian ground forces would then advance toward Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast and others now based in Crimea and the Donbas would advance from the south and east, respectively. Russian forces in Belarus could directly threaten Kyiv, and these forces could move on Kyiv to hasten the Ukrainian government’s capitulation.

Though the operations have not finished yet and there are many imponderables, there is striking resemblance of on-ground operations with the prediction. The question is: Has Russia lost the element of surprise and deception?

Prediction before the operations started. Russia would carry out a multipronged, simultaneous attack, sending mechanised forces across Ukraine’s flat frozen countryside. They would:

Avoid Storming and pacifying major cities, more likely to capture and hold ground to establish and protect supply lines and withdraw after obtaining a favourable diplomatic settlement or inflicting sufficient damage.

Conduct missile and air strikes against high priority Ukrainian targets, including military headquarters, radar stations, air defences, airfields, logistical centres, critical infrastructure and transit routes to prevent reinforcements reaching the frontline. 

Focus on punitive strikes on the military, critical infrastructure and places important to Ukrainians’ national identity and morale.

Key target would be Kyiv, which the Russians could attack from both sides of the Dnieper and from the air.

Use bombs, rockets, artillery, cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles at targets like the presidential palace, presidential administrative buildings, Ukraine’s legislature, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Ukrainian Security Service headquarters and Maidan, the central square in Kyiv and the site of multiple pro-democracy revolutions. 

Elite Russian airborne forces (VDV), would be Heli lifted into positions behind Ukrainian lines to occupy tactically-important terrain including intersections and bridges and erect blocking positions to prevent Ukrainian forces from reinforcing each other. 

Use of Irregular Forces like Spetsnaz, intelligence services and paramilitaries could be an important element of the conflict.

About 100 Battalion tactical groups of 700 to 900 personnel in armoured fighting vehicles supported by artillery, engineers, air defence and electronic warfare units would advance rapidly, battering Ukrainian resistance with massive artillery strikes. 

The ground forces would operate with tightly organized intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) elements. A precision-guided tactical ballistic missile,the Iskander mobile missile system, would attack Ukrainian airfields, operational headquarters and logistical infrastructure at ranges between 180 and 300 miles.

At the strategic, operational and tactical level, integrated air defences comprising S-400 and S-500 Russian air and missile defense systems would provide protection to  Russian maneuver formations from Ukrainian air and missile attacks. Any manned or unmanned, low-flying, subsonic platform would be highly susceptible to detection, engagement and destruction.

The skies overhead Ukrainian forces would be teeming with a mix of Russian surveillance drones, manned aircraft, and Russia’s new loitering munitions. These attacks would be swiftly followed by precision-guided rocket artillery fire.

Cyberattacks would hit critical infrastructure, such as Ukraine’s power grid.

Destruction of Ukrainian arms manufacturers. By eliminating the capacity to develop and produce Neptune cruise missiles, Hrim-2 short-range ballistic missiles and Sapsan missile systems, Russia could remove the prospective threat of conventional deterrence from Ukraine in the immediate future.

The ground and sea offensive and use airpower and long-range firepower to achieve Russia’s military and political aims. 

Inflict massive casualties and trigger a humanitarian catastrophe, inducing chaos within the civilian and military chains of command and possibly decapitating the Ukrainian leadership.

Rand Corporation, in its paper on The Russian Way of Warfare A Primer, identified ten key characteristics of Russian Warfare:

Russia’s military is postured to defend its homeland using layered, integrated air defences and a limited number of buffer states to buy space and time to react to adversary strikes or invasion.

Russia hopes to defend its territory by fielding defensive systems and strike weapons with extended ranges. These would provide operational advantages for conducting offensive operations to Russian forces near its borders.

Russia will use indirect action and asymmetric responses to mitigate perceived imbalances across multiple domains. It will try to terminate a conflict quickly, using control escalation dynamics.

Arsenal of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons is the ultimate insurance for Russian escalation management 

Emphasis is to achieve campaign objectives in a very short period of time; especially in preplanned operations.

Availability of Russian Armed Forces at higher readiness in short-notice.  

Mixture of conventional and unconventional warfare approaches 

At the operational and tactical levels, focus on disrupting, degrading or destroying opponent command and control and power projection capabilities by the use of kinetic fires, direct action by ground forces and cyber/electronic warfare.

Use of a limited number of long-range conventional precision strike capabilities against key operational and strategic targets, especially at fixed, known locations.

Russian tactics will have a heavy emphasis on massed indirect long-range fire. 

The progress of operations was acuurately predicted by CSIS.

Russians don’t have a recent history of conducting large scale manoeuvre warfare. In Syria, the Russians track targets from the air and maritime vessels in the Mediterranean. The ground forces were Syrian units, Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian militia groups. The  Russians didn’t deploy combat forces in any meaningful way. There wasn’t Russian bloodshed. As Putin goes into Ukraine, he risks the blood of  Russian soldiers, which has political risks. 

Irregular Activities

Any conventional military operations by Russia would include effective disinformation campaigns to undermine local and international support for Ukraine’s government, sophisticated cyberattacks, and the activation of “little green men” to subvert local and national government institutions.

Russia has created, sustained, and funded separatist political parties in Ukraine and recruited Cossack, Chechen, Serbian, and Russian paramilitaries to fight in Ukraine.

Russia may also conduct different types of sabotage and subversion. Russia could target the undersea fiberoptic cables connecting Europe to North America. Around 97 per cent of all intercontinental data moves through these cables, which runs under the Atlantic Ocean. Russia could also target other European fiberoptic cables between the Norwegian mainland and Norwegian-administered Svalbard.

What happened

Russia has launched a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, with ground troops rapidly advancing in armoured columns along various axes. The operation was preceded by concentrated air and cruise missile strikes and the landing of airborne forces behind Ukrainian lines.

Russian forces have hit targets across Ukraine and seized key facilities and swaths of territory. The Russian juggernaut is not brooking any Ukrainian military opposition. Though Ukrainian troops have rebuffed attacks in certain parts of the country, it seems Russian operations are progressing according to their plan.

The scale of military operations suggests Russia intends to occupy, at least in the short-term, large parts of Ukraine, east of the Dnipro river. The operation closely follows Russian military doctrine for a multipronged ground assault supported by air and maritime forces and operations in cyberspace and attacks on everything from wireless communications to radar systems.

The performance of Ukraine’s recently acquired Bayraktar Turkish TB2 drones which were touted as game-changers in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and American anti-tank Javeline missiles, would be keenly watched.

Ukraine

Given the vast stretch of terrain, Ukraine needs to defend, its armed forces are at a major disadvantage. It shares a 1,400-mile border with Russia, and the eastern half facing Russia lacks any natural defences until the Dnipro River at the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Ukraine’s armed forces have more than 200,000 personnel, and their strength has been significantly increased by Western military aid, including supplies of US Javelin anti-tank missiles, Humvees, patrol boats, radar systems and Turkish drones. The US has committed $2.5 billion in lethal and nonlethal defensive aid to Ukraine since 2014, including more than $400 million in 2021 alone.

The army consists of 209,000 active soldiers organised into 27 combat brigades and supporting units. After seven years of conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s separatist-held Donbas region, Ukraine’s armed forces have undergone reforms. For internal security duties, Ukraine has a large paramilitary force, national guard and border guard. The navy is small and has limited capabilities. The air force flies about 100 aircraft, upgraded versions of Soviet aircraft. The Ukrainian military is now battle-hardened and highly motivated.  Andrii Zagorodniuk, Ukraine’s defence minister from 2019 to 2020, said, “It’s certainly not going to be an easy operation. It’s not going to be a quick victorious war for Russia. Even the most fanatical Russian military planner must realise that once an invasion begins, events will spin out of control. You don’t know how many people you are going to lose, how quickly you’re going to advance. And you will certainly have trouble keeping control of anything you have invaded.” The former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko spelt it out clearly: Ukraine wants to ensure that every city and every home becomes a fortress. And that thousands of coffins are sent back to Russia.

The Ukrainian armed forces have invested in some domestically produced modernisation: air and missile defence, modernised coastal defence forces, Neptune anti-ship ballistic missiles for the navy, and Stugna anti-tank missiles for the ground forces.  Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons in the 1990s, thereby losing that ultimate guarantee of sovereignty.

A lot will depend on their morale and how they survive the initial Russian onslaught. They will have to retreat in an orderly manner, re-establish a new front and organise their forces for necessary counter-attacks. The Ukrainian army is prepared to split into smaller units, less easily targeted by advanced weapons.

Ukraine understands that no US or NATO forces will come to its rescue on the battlefield. Its strategy doesn’t depend on turning back a Russian invasion but rather on bleeding Russia to make occupation untenable.

Ukraine’s ability to resist in this manner is questionable, and it is massively outmanned and outgunned by the Russian military. They would have to contend with advanced Russian air defences and formidable Russian electronic jamming capabilities. While Ukrainians are determined to defend their homeland, the separatist militias reinforced by Russian troops defeated them during major combat in 2014.

The disparity of forces on the ground and at sea is also matched in the air domain. This significantly limits Ukraine’s options, but it does not mean that Russian aircraft would have complete freedom of action in Ukrainian skies. Ukraine’s best strategy is to forgo challenging Russian freedom of action in the air over the frontlines and attempt to inflict steady losses on any deep-penetration strike or air assault sorties via defence in depth.

It is not clear what is the end state President Putin has set out for himself. While Russia’s military operation can score tactical wins early, Putin’s ultimate strategic goals and objectives remain unclear. There are various options like dividing Ukraine along the physical obstacle of Dnieper River. The east of the river being controlled by Russia and the west by Ukraine or capture of the complete state of Ukraine and installing a puppet government etc. But if his aims are redrawing borders or even toppling the current government, an insurgency is inevitable. 

It was one thing for the US to invade Vietnam in 1965, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and the Soviet Union to enter Afghanistan in 1979, but it was a different task to persevere in those countries in the face of stubborn insurgencies.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright argued that a Russian occupation of more of Ukraine, including Kyiv, would lead to an insurgency that the Soviet Union faced in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Western allies have already discussed how to arm any Ukrainian resistance that emerges to confront Russian aggression. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Munich Security Conference that “a lightning war would be followed by a long and hideous period of reprisals and revenge and insurgency.” 

Though no two insurgencies are similar, comparison with Afghanistan is is bound to happen. The Afghan resistance fought against the Russian 40th Army that occupied Afghanistan starting on Christmas Eve 1979. But the Afghans were not alone.

Finances were provided by the  Saudis about $2.7 billion, approximately the same by the  CIA  and  Saudi private sources raised another $4 billion for the rebels. The Afghan people paid a horrible cost. At least a million Afghans died, five million became refugees in Pakistan and Iran and millions more were displaced in their own country. But they won.

The question being raised is :

Are Ukrainians prepared to pay the price?

Which state or states will be the frontline sponsor?

How much support will the United States and NATO provide?

Will the insurgency spark a broader conflict, and can it be contained? 

Even if the Russians overrun a major part of Ukraine, Ukrainian Insurgency can be against Russian-controlled territory with outside assistance. These kinds of Insurgency can continue for a long time. 

It has been already reported that in  Kharkiv, Ukraine, Local men in jeans and civilian jackets were unloading Kalashnikov rifles and crates of ammo from a car on Thursday as the first signs of a guerrilla insurgency emerged within hours of Russia invading Ukraine. The resistance has already begun.

(The author is Indian Army Veteran. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online. Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited).