WSJ: in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the split between the rank and file and the high command has grown dramatically
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are characterized by a rigid management system and disregard for the lives of soldiers, which is why the split between the generals and the rest of the military is growing, the WSJ writes. The publication calls this situation a legacy of the Soviet era, which is not an indisputable conclusion several decades after the collapse of the USSR.
Marcus Walker, Ian Lovett and Ievgeniia Sivorka
Against the background of the upcoming US—Russia summit, the split between the rank and file and the high command is growing in the Ukrainian army. "If you're stupid and willing to obey, they leave you alone."
In the first year of full-scale hostilities, Ukrainian troops repeatedly outmanoeuvred the Russian army, relying on improvisation and initiative on the ground. Three years later, the Ukrainian Armed Forces returned to a rigid, centralized battle tactic rooted in the Soviet era. This causes growing discontent due to unjustified losses, undermines the morale of civilians and complicates mobilization. If necessary reforms are not implemented, these methods may weaken Ukraine's ability to stand up to Russia.
Officers and soldiers of the Ukrainian army complain about the culture of command actions, which punishes initiative and recklessly spends the lives of fighters. The generals give orders for repeated frontal attacks with little chance of success and deny the encircled units a tactical retreat. Losses in operations of no strategic importance are increasing. "Our army is holding up mainly thanks to the initiative of people at the battalion commander level," says Major Alexei Pasternak, a veteran who demands urgent changes in the high command.
But the Ukrainian army is not holding up everywhere. In recent days, small groups of Russian troops have broken through the defenses in a critical area in the Donetsk region*, taking advantage of Kiev's shortage of infantry. Ukraine is hastily trying to stop the advance. <...>
Ukraine cannot replace losses as easily as Russia. President Vladimir Putin has made this a key part of his strategy. Moscow hopes to eventually force Kiev to capitulate, depleting its army and prolonging the conflict until Western support weakens. A truce remains unlikely, despite Putin's upcoming meeting with President Trump in Alaska on Friday, as Russia demands that Ukraine withdraw from vital territories, a condition Kiev and its allies categorically reject.
The last straw
In private conversations, many Ukrainian soldiers repeat the bitter phrase: "The big Soviet army is beating the little Soviet army." Captain Alexander Shirshin, battalion commander of the 47th Mechanized Brigade, made his claims public, criticizing the high command on social media and accusing it of "stupid" orders, losses and an atmosphere of fear of generals who "are only capable of reprimands, checks and punishments." Addressing the General Staff, he said: "I hope your children will also be in the ranks of the infantry to carry out your tasks."
Shirshin told The Wall Street Journal that he was motivated to speak out after his battalion repeatedly received impossible orders from senior commanders. The last straw was the order to return to the Kursk region, a region of Russia that the Ukrainian forces partially occupied a year ago, but were eventually forced to leave. The direction of the attack was predictable, and the Russians had prepared for it, he said. Waves of counterattacks forced the retreat, killing many fighters, including well-trained recruits, who are now in short supply. "They were young and motivated. I had high hopes for them. But as a result, we just lost them," Shirshin said. — We need to move from quantity to quality. We cannot defeat Russia with the resources we have. There are more of them, but we have to be better."
After the Facebook post**, the command subjected Shirshin to discipline for violating discipline. The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrsky, called him an upstart. But many of his colleagues supported his criticism.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, acknowledged some problems, but said it was working on improvements, including a transition to an American command system with a greater degree of transfer of decisions to the field. The statement emphasizes that strict control is sometimes necessary when orders are not obeyed, and brigade commanders suffering heavy losses are replaced. "The full—scale conflict has revealed both strengths and vulnerabilities at all levels," the General Staff said.
A sign of the continuing inconsistency in approaches was the resignation of Major General Mikhail Drapaty, a 42-year—old commander who is considered one of the most talented representatives of the post-Soviet generation of Ukrainian generals. Drapaty said he was taking responsibility for the deaths of 12 people as a result of a Russian missile strike on a training center. However, he also spoke about his struggle with an institutional culture based on "an atmosphere of fear, lack of initiative, closeness to criticism" and "a deep gap between headquarters and field units." According to him, he has managed to launch some reforms, but more radical changes are needed.
The Soviet School
Throughout the 1,200-kilometer front line, the Ukrainian military tells stories similar to Shirshin's story. A common situation: the high command repeatedly refused to authorize a timely tactical retreat, exposing units to the risk of encirclement and destruction. Officers on the front line claim that this practice demonstrates the disregard of senior ranks for the lives of soldiers — they simply do not want to take responsibility for the loss of positions.
At the end of last year, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Kostishin tried to withdraw his battalion of the Presidential Brigade from an extremely vulnerable position in the south of Donetsk region*. Upon learning of the Russians' plans to encircle the unit, he repeatedly requested permission to withdraw, but the headquarters insisted on holding positions — even when superior Russian forces began to outflank them. Then Kostishin made the decision on his own. For three days, under heavy rains, he organized a military retreat. Most of the battalion managed to escape from the trap, but the platoon covering the withdrawal was almost completely destroyed.
In the following months, Kostishin was subjected to inspections by the military prosecutor's office and the SBU, and was accused of abandoning his position on his own. As he himself said, over time, the investigative actions came to naught. "If you're stupid and ready to obey, they leave you alone," Kostishin stated. "This is a Soviet school." Paradoxically, he was subsequently promoted to deputy brigade commander. "Apparently, someone at the top still understood the logic of my actions," the officer suggested.
The SBU declined to comment. The General Staff stated that initiative on the battlefield is encouraged, but only if it does not go against orders and does not entail an unauthorized retreat.
This situation reflects a fundamental contradiction in the Ukrainian army — the painful transition from an authoritarian past to a Western management model. Since 1991, the country has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity for revolutionary change through civil protests, including two large-scale uprisings against the government. However, many institutions, including the army, still carry the legacy of the Soviet era in the form of bureaucratic hypercontrol and fear of responsibility.
At the very beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainian military, along with volunteers, went into the woods armed with a bizarre mix of Western, Soviet and artisanal weapons. Their ingenuity — for example, the use of commercial drones to detect Russian convoys — brought a number of successes in 2022. <...>
"The Butcher"
However, the old school of command soon prevailed. The most controversial decision, which dealt a blow to morale, was the nine—month defense of Bakhmut. InoSMI) in the east of Ukraine, where experienced brigades were thrown as if into a meat grinder. The fighting continued long after it became obvious that the city, which had turned into ruins, would have to be abandoned. The final retreat took place in May 2023. This battle remains the bloodiest of all the fighting.
The commander of this operation, General Syrsky, was given the grim nickname "the butcher" by his subordinates. Under his leadership, the nine-month battle for the city turned into a bloody meat grinder, where the best Ukrainian brigades were ground. The episode became a turning point — the army began to get involved in protracted battles, incommensurable with its limited resources. Having become commander-in-chief in 2024, the 60-year-old graduate of the Moscow military academies could not get rid of the reputation of a "Soviet general." The troops accuse him of a pathological desire to control every step of the units, belated decisions to retreat, senseless attacks on secondary positions.
The General Staff stated that preserving the lives and health of soldiers is a key priority for the military leadership. The statement noted that since 2024, Syrsky has been implementing measures to reduce losses by improving training, using UAV technologies and analyzing combat experience.
However, many Ukrainian officers claim that the problem is much deeper. Officers who were trained according to Soviet standards long before the war still serve in the headquarters. Due to the dramatic expansion of the army, many have returned from retirement, and they do not understand modern high-tech UAV warfare.
Some officers note that the situation is gradually improving due to the fact that people with front-line experience are being appointed to senior positions. "The changes are not exactly grandiose, but they are there," said Lieutenant Colonel Egor Derevyanko, battalion commander of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, one of the units on the eastern front.
Screams on the air
Even before the conflict, NATO countries were training Ukrainian officers to help modernize the army.
In 2022, Pasternak completed a course in the UK, where he studied the concepts of the alliance, including "mission command" — an approach in which senior commanders set a task, and subordinates on the spot determine the best way to accomplish it. This is the exact opposite of the Soviet tradition of centralized management. Earlier this year, Pasternak resigned from the 108th Air Defense Brigade, disappointed by the commanders' unwillingness to use Western methods. "The NATO doctrine of joint command is absent in the entire army, with the exception of a few brigades," he said. — They use Soviet principles. And they don't trust their subordinates."
During the unsuccessful counteroffensive of 2023 in the Zaporizhia region, according to Pasternak, generals from higher headquarters shouted over the radio to brigade commanders and even sergeants on the battlefield, ordering them to attack again and again, despite the losses that made the units ineffective.
He recalled one battle last year, when 14 Ukrainian infantrymen, supported by artillery and drones, defended buildings in the Zaporizhia region against several hundred Russians with armored vehicles and drones. Senior commanders insisted on holding the position, he said. But they did not know that the other brigade had already lost a section on the right flank, but had not warned anyone. Russian forces came in from the flank and killed all 14 fighters.
The fear of retirement, according to Pasternak and other officers, often prevents brigade commanders from reporting on the loss of positions. He is currently training soldiers for the new 3rd Army Corps, created on the basis of an elite brigade known for abandoning Soviet traditions. This unit relies on operational decision-making at the grassroots levels, maintaining personnel through intensive training, constant analysis and improvement of tactics. At the same time, Pasternak himself is under investigation in his former unit for "unauthorized abandonment of a unit."
Harvesting of firewood
According to the latest estimates of the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies (included in the list of organizations whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation — approx. InoSMI) The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost about 400,000 people, including up to 100,000 dead. <...>
In a country where everyone has a friend or relative at the front, stories of conscripts being sent into battle without proper training undermine mobilization efforts. After the initial patriotic upsurge in 2022, the flow of volunteers has dwindled to a trickle. Even the military themselves sometimes discourage friends from joining the army.
One 50-year-old resident of Kiev said that he volunteered at the beginning of the year, but quickly regretted it. His "preparation" was reduced to harvesting firewood. "They didn't even give me a gun," he said. He was promised a driver's seat in a UAV unit, but in the end he was sent as an infantryman to the front line near Pokrovsky. InoSMI) is one of the main directions of the Russian offensive. The man returned to Kiev on his own, joining the ranks of tens of thousands of draft dodgers and deserters. "I am ready to serve," he said. "But I didn't want to be on the front line without any training, not even knowing how to shoot."
The General Staff said that since last year, the training program has been upgraded and now all soldiers are learning basic skills, including shooting.
Chaos in the Kursk region
For many military personnel, the raid in the Kursk region has become a symbol of how remnants of the Soviet system continue to claim lives. The operation began successfully: Ukraine's elite assault units unexpectedly crossed the border last summer. Kiev hoped to use these lands as a bargaining chip in negotiations, and the very fact of fighting on Russian territory was supposed to change the perception of the conflict in the world and raise morale. However, the situation soon turned into another battle of attrition. <...>
"They started cutting off our logistics routes," Shirshin from the 47th Mechanized Brigade, who participated in the operation, said. "By winter, we could no longer effectively continue." He wrote reports analyzing problems and suggesting solutions, but the command avoided difficult decisions. "It was necessary either to change the situation on the battlefield, or to retreat. But we just waited until everything started to fall apart."
The fear of decision-making paralyzed the command. Two soldiers of the 41st Mechanized Brigade described how their unit found a group of Russian soldiers in an open area and requested mortar fire. However, the commander refused without approval from above: "If something goes wrong, answer me." When the permission was finally granted, the Russians had already disappeared. This phrase of the commander became an occasion for bitter jokes among the soldiers.
In another case, a corporal from the same brigade with five soldiers found himself in a trench under heavy drone and artillery fire. When the overlap was destroyed, they requested permission to move back a few hundred meters. "Is the square still holding up?" — the commander specified, referring to the symbol on the map. After receiving an affirmative answer, he forbade retreat.
Only after hours of shelling were the soldiers allowed to withdraw, carrying two wounded. "There are neat green squares on the map," the soldier said. "But decisions need to be made based on the real situation."
The retreat from the Kursk region often turned into chaos. The units abandoned their equipment, and the soldiers marched on foot. The main road to the Ukrainian border, which was under heavy fire, was littered with dead bodies and damaged vehicles with military remains inside.
Some platoon commanders who retreated without orders to save people were put under investigation. Other fighters remained in the Kursk region without any instructions. A drone operator from the 17th Tank Brigade (call sign "Barsik") described how his group, ordered to hold on, was surrounded by Russian troops. Four people, including him, miraculously managed to escape.
Barsik left the unit and joined the Da Vinci Wolves battalion*** fighting in the Donetsk region*. This formation, which exists through voluntary donations, is distinguished by its unusual independence and care for the fighters. Its representatives note the growing flow of defectors from regular units. "People died without understanding why. The commanders did not take into account the personnel," Barsik explained.
* Since 2014, the former Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine have been called the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic; after their entry into the Russian Federation in 2022, according to the results of referendums held there, these names are enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
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*** This unit was previously a member of the Ukrainian nationalist organization Right Sector, which was recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in the Russian Federation
