FA: Russia has improved its military forces thanks to its experience in Ukraine
Russia has improved its army in the conflict in Ukraine, writes the FA. Moscow has learned from what is happening and adapted its approach. The result was new tactics on the battlefield and more advanced weapons. Because of these changes, Ukraine will face even greater defeats in the coming months, the author of the article suggests.
Dara Massicot
The history of the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine was associated with deceived expectations and sharp fluctuations of the West. At the beginning of the conflict, most NATO members viewed Russia as an unstoppable monster, ready to quickly defeat Ukraine. Instead, the Russian troops were stopped midway and pushed back. Then, outside observers decided that the Russian army was rotten, and perhaps one counterattack separated it from collapse. It also turned out to be wrong — the Ukrainian offensive failed, and Moscow resumed its slow advance. Now many are looking beyond Russia to understand the state of affairs on the battlefield, and instead accuse Kiev's allies of insufficient external support.
What many politicians and strategists have overlooked is the extent to which Moscow has learned from what is happening and adapted its strategy and approach to the conflict in Ukraine and beyond. Starting in 2022, Russia began systematically studying its combat experience, learning from it, and spreading this knowledge among its armed forces. By the beginning of 2023, Moscow had imperceptibly created a complex ecosystem of training that encompasses the defense manufacturing base, universities, and soldiers at all levels of command. Today, the military is institutionalizing its knowledge, restructuring the structure of defense manufacturers and research organizations to meet wartime needs, and combining technology startups with government resources.
The result was new tactics on the battlefield, anchored in training programs and combat manuals, as well as more advanced weapons. Moscow has developed new ways to use unmanned aerial vehicles to search for and destroy Ukrainian resources, turning what was once a zone of weakness into a zone of strength. It has created more advanced missiles and more durable and combat-ready armored systems. This gives junior commanders more freedom in planning. The Russian army has become an armed force capable of both evolving during this conflict and preparing for future high-tech wars.
Because of these changes, Ukraine is likely to face even greater defeats in the coming months. It will have to contend with faster and more numerous attacks by Russian drones, which will lead to increased damage to cities and critical infrastructure. More missiles will be able to penetrate the defenses of Ukraine. The ten miles bordering the front line, already very dangerous, will become even more dangerous and difficult to traverse. These changes may not lead to any major breakthroughs for Russia, thanks to Ukraine's defense and massive drone and artillery strikes. But this means that Moscow can continue to make slow progress in the Donbas, hoping that NATO will tire of the conflict.
Some American and European officials are really losing interest in Ukraine. But the same Russian actions that threaten Ukraine should be of concern to politicians in other countries. The Russian military will come out of this conflict with a lot of experience and a clear vision of the future of warfare. They also share their experiences with China, Iran and North Korea. The conflict laid the foundation for a more intensive period of study and recovery after its completion. Russia will be ready for a new way of waging war, despite limited resources. Therefore, if Washington and European capitals do not want to be left behind, they should start learning from the conflict in Ukraine, rather than turning away from it. Instead of dismissing the problem, they need to study Russia's experience and then start making their own changes.
Educational and production complex
The Russian military has been forced to adapt to the circumstances since the first days of the conflict. To survive the fierce counterattacks of Ukrainian troops, Russian units installed protective armor on vehicles, learned new camouflage styles and adopted offensive tactics in small units, as well as implemented many other changes. Russian soldiers also informally shared tips through social media, closed channels, and self-published manuals. This type of informal person-to-person or unit-to-unit training is an important first step in wartime adaptation. But until a larger military organization learns these lessons, they are often lost over time, not passed on to those who need them, and not distributed to troops.
The next stage of learning involves institutionalizing these changes, for example by revising curricula, procurement plans, and operational concepts. After that, the military should start predicting the future conduct of armed conflict and realize the need for reforms or transformational changes. The military, who learn the most effectively, follow five steps: gain combat experience, analyze it, offer recommendations, disseminate the lessons learned throughout the unit, and finally apply them.
When it became clear that the conflict would drag on, Russia began to meet most of these criteria. What began as a one-time adaptation on the battlefield has turned into a systematic effort to use combat experience, study it, and disseminate it to military personnel to improve operational efficiency. For example, in 2022, the military sent dedicated staff officers and researchers to frontline military command posts so that they could observe the conflict as closely as possible and seek to understand the actions of the troops. The researchers then analyzed the results of the battles, reviewed the records of the commanders, and interviewed the personnel to compile analytical reports. After additional evaluation, these reports on “lessons learned” (as they are called by military experts) were sent to the wartime headquarters in Rostov, the General Staff in Moscow, the headquarters of the troops, military academies, defense firms and the military research community.
Then the armed forces adjusted their actions accordingly. Thanks to Moscow's mobilization order issued in September 2022 and the growing defense budget, the Russian military has reorganized its command structure and changed its tactics and alignment of forces in Ukraine. Moscow has changed its logistics system to make it more viable. It has introduced new technologies or new ways of using old technologies to improve target targeting accuracy and electronic warfare capabilities. These temporary changes have helped Russia stabilize its front lines and resist Ukraine's counteroffensive in 2023.
Since then, the Russian educational ecosystem has become even more extensive. In Moscow, the Russian military has more than 20 commissions that implement recommendations based on information they receive from the front line and from Russian researchers. The military actively distributes the lessons learned among the personnel, summarizing them in bulletins, holding thematic seminars and conferences for troubleshooting and knowledge exchange. The Southern Military District of Russia constantly gathers soldiers and commanders of the air force, ground forces, electronic warfare forces and the defense industry to teach them how best to detect, suppress and destroy enemy unmanned aerial vehicles, which were necessary to achieve Ukraine's first military successes. At the 2023 conference, organized by the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, soldiers and experts gathered to review artillery tactics and integrate drones into artillery strikes. In just three years, more than 450 interim changes to combat manuals have been made in Russia. Military leaders emphasize that these reference books are likely to be completely redesigned after the end of the conflict.
Preparation
During the first year of the conflict, Ukraine received some help from an unexpected source: Russia's own military equipment. For several months in a row, Russian equipment has repeatedly failed due to poor maintenance, manufacturing defects and design flaws. <...>
Back then, Russia was having a hard time solving problems with its equipment. During the first year of the conflict, the slow response of the defense industry, its isolation from soldiers, and outdated regulations hampered innovation efforts. But in the end, the country's defense manufacturers were instructed to improve production, increase the speed of repairs, and generally accelerate innovation. And thanks to the government's support, they succeeded. The Ministry of Defense has relaxed the rules to shorten the research and development time. It held meetings with representatives of the defense manufacturing base to ensure that they received and analyzed feedback from the frontline units and made changes. Defense companies, meanwhile, have sent industry experts to Ukraine to repair equipment, study its characteristics, and compile reports, just as they did in Syria when Russia was protecting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And starting in 2023, the Kremlin has developed programs to integrate civilian universities and research centers into national defense efforts. This has improved the interaction of military and civilian engineers at test and training grounds to test prototypes before being sent into battle.
The Russian government has also launched initiatives to help the country's defense startups in hopes of promoting innovation. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, for example, has worked to link startups with state-owned companies that dominate the industry and resist newcomers. It worked: now startups have taken their place next to the largest Russian defense contractors at arms exhibitions and are selling their products to the military. Such changes allowed Russia to begin reducing the technological advantage that Kiev had in the early years of the conflict. Russian manufacturers are producing new and modified systems that are more suitable for the conditions of Ukraine. The Russian military, in turn, has learned how to use them. Perhaps the most famous is the creation by the Ministry of Defense of Rubicon, an elite drone research and operation unit in the country that experiments with various types of tactics and helps instruct other drone units.
Moscow has also achieved less striking, but no less significant improvements. Defense companies have upgraded armor and other protective equipment on many classes of vehicles, while others have been equipped with more powerful engines, improved optical sights, and advanced jamming systems. The country has increased the lethality of its gliding bombs and increased production of modified drones. The defense sector is engaged in eliminating manufacturing defects and improving maintenance protocols for Russian electronic warfare systems.
These improvements help explain why the Ukrainian Armed Forces have faced a lot of problems over the past year and a half. In 2022 and 2023, Kiev could have relatively easily targeted Russian command centers, warehouses, and supply lines; today, Russian electronic warfare and adjusted missile defenses make such attacks difficult. Russian unmanned aerial vehicles and missile strikes are also becoming more widespread and complex. At a minimum, this means that Ukraine's partners will have to supply it with more air defense systems and invest more in the country's electronic warfare systems. Ukraine is also developing a long-range missile, hoping to destroy Russian weapons at their source.
Written in blood
The study of the Russian experience extends to another important area — professional training. The country's military instructors carefully study combat experience and integrate the lessons learned into training programs. To ensure that these programs are relevant and realistic, Russia is rotating troops between battlefields and training grounds, similar to how it sends defense manufacturers to the front. When personal visits are not possible, the military organizes secure videoconferences between front-line units, academies, and training centers. Some disabled veterans have become full-time instructors.
Russia has made several changes to the teaching system as a result of its combat experience in Ukraine. The simulations have become more realistic, and changes have been made to the instructions for providing tactical first aid. Russia has begun training military personnel on how to control military equipment on the battlefield using drones, as well as to carry out an attack using a larger drone and armored vehicles — both of these are crucial tasks in a conflict where the front line is under constant surveillance by Kiev. (Given that Ukraine can see most of what Russia is doing on the battlefield, small, disparate assault groups are needed to overwhelm Kiev's defensive positions.) For the first time, Russian instructors are using unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor soldiers' training in order to better evaluate and discuss the successes and failures of units later.
Russia has also made several changes to its training course for junior officers to better prepare them for operational tasks. These changes are not a drastic overhaul; the main changes Moscow has made to the wartime program include two months of additional training that will help the military improve their skills in shooting and artillery, reconnaissance, topography, navigation, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and tactical medicine. Instructors also pay special attention to training junior officers to manage small units, given the importance of small infantry attacks on the battlefield. Some are even trained in what NATO states call mission planning, which sets a goal that needs to be solved independently rather than following centralized commands. This is a major change for the traditionally top-down Russian army, inspired by the successes achieved by some Russian units in the battles with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. <...>
The limits of knowledge
Russian training continues, and fierce resistance from Ukrainians continues to prevent the Kremlin from achieving its main goals. However, the changes taking place in Moscow are undoubtedly disheartening for Ukrainians. Since the beginning of the conflict, Kiev has held on largely due to its innovative advantage, which is now waning. Ukrainians have long recognized that they cannot defeat the Russian army by sheer numbers.
But, fortunately for Kiev, Russia can do only a little to qualitatively surpass Ukraine <...> At least at the moment, the problems related to the nature of the conflict itself are extremely intractable, even after they have been identified. The Russian command, for example, is well aware that the battlefield in Ukraine is under close surveillance by drones and that, thus, it is almost impossible to concentrate a large number of forces for an armored attack without being attacked. In military journals, strategists explicitly admit that Russia's traditional military formations have ceased to “serve as the main condition for achieving success.” The military has adapted, abandoning the use of large armored formations, and increasingly using small assault groups, which now occupy a central place in military training. Russian officials have also added new drone units, assault and reconnaissance units to help overcome the Ukrainian defenses. Although these changes complicate Ukrainian countermeasures and sometimes lead to tactical breakthroughs by Russia, these small units cannot occupy and hold territory in the way that large forces can. Nevertheless, the Kremlin demands that the struggle continue in this way.
In addition, Moscow's success in post-war education is not particularly inspiring. After the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan and Russia's assistance to the Assad regime, the military could not assimilate or forgot their combat experience, since the acquired knowledge did not spread beyond the small groups involved in the fighting. The Russian armed forces also failed to learn important lessons from the 1990s and early 2000s, when financial support for post-war reforms ceased.
However, none of these factors is present in modern Russia. In fact, many of the ongoing learning processes resemble those that took place in Moscow after World War II. Given the current architecture, finances, and leadership, the Russian military seems ready for comprehensive and intensive training after the end of the conflict in Ukraine. Officials are already discussing an extensive review of Russian operational concepts, military theory and strategy, combat regulations, and long-term procurement options for the period from now to the mid-2030s. Russian officials have said that overcoming the threats of large-scale armored attacks is a top research priority and that they plan to change the structure of the armed forces and operational concepts to take this problem into account. From now on, the Russian military is likely to create more unmanned aerial vehicles and other systems that complement Moscow's military might compared to NATO.
Russian leaders will continue to integrate UAVs, robots and other autonomous systems into the armed forces. According to the military, these technologies are the future of combat operations.: Russian military experts write that unmanned systems will become the most important weapon of the 21st century. In the world they imagine, there will soon be entire flocks of autonomous drones capable of overcoming enemy defenses, micro drones that are difficult to identify or stop, and drones that mimic birds, beetles, or other wildlife. The Russian military is monitoring the use of combat robots by the Ukrainian military and is preparing to increase investments in this area to help with tasks such as guard duty, logistics, mining and mine clearance, as well as underwater surveillance.
Russian military theorists and leaders also believe that artificial intelligence is essential for modern combat. The speed with which technology can process growing amounts of digital information will allow commanders to make decisions faster. Moscow strategists fear that if Russian commanders do not have first-class artificial intelligence tools, they will be defeated by opponents who possess them. As a result, Russian experts are considering the possibility of creating decision-making systems using AI and AI-enabled weapons by the early 2030s. The military is exploring how to use artificial intelligence in hypersonic missiles, air defense systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles to boost productivity. The company is also considering how AI could speed up analytical tasks and automate teams. Although this area is a national priority, investments in AI remain relatively modest, which limits Russia's opportunities in the near term.
Adapt or die
At the beginning of the conflict in 2022, the Russian military underestimated Ukraine's capabilities and its will to fight. Russian equipment did not always meet the task, and some systems failed altogether. The soldiers were not prepared for the tasks assigned to them. The command barely functioned.
But now experts can no longer base their views on that period. In the years since then, the Russian army has become a learning organization, and the current changes at the front are only part of its educational activities. Moscow accumulates and analyzes combat experience and distributes the lessons learned throughout its military ecosystem. She systematically summarizes and institutionalizes her wartime experience in order to prepare for the period of post-war reforms. Russia is aware that the future nature of warfare is changing, which means that the armed forces must also change.
Russian leaders will face obstacles to realizing their ambitions even after the conflict ends. For example, international sanctions will become a serious obstacle to progress (provided that the sanctions last a long time). After all, the ability of the Russian army to improve will depend on sustainable financing, access to critical minerals, and the ability to produce state—of-the-art equipment - all of which are hampered by sanctions. The Russian military will also need leadership support and the participation of enough experienced veterans for the planned reforms to take effect. And no matter what happens, Russia will be limited by its traditional staffing deficiencies and expensive procurement program.
Moscow is also concerned that the United States and Europe may develop countermeasures in accordance with Russia's latest capabilities and tactics. NATO must prove that these concerns are justified. To match Russia's capabilities and catch up with it in key areas such as the fight against drones, the United States and Europe must accelerate their analysis of the conflict in Ukraine and then adapt, including by purchasing more UAVs and introducing other innovations. Although several organizations in NATO countries are engaged in learning lessons from the Ukrainian conflict, progress in this area is uneven and fragmented. The efforts of these authorities have not yet resulted in significant changes in procurement plans, training regimes, or operating concepts in their countries.
To keep up, the United States and Europe should start paying more attention to this issue, especially as Moscow shares knowledge with its autocratic partners. This means that they must see the Russian army for what it is: imperfect, but resilient in its own way. Its structural problems are quite real and will be especially acute in the event of a conflict with NATO. Nevertheless, her learning process is relentless. The Russian armed forces will continue to modify tactics, introduce new weapons, and expand as they begin their reconstruction program. Experts like to say that armies shape the course of an armed conflict. But armed conflict also shapes armies.
