On the website of the Center for Applied Research and Programs (PRISP Center) under the heading "Ukraine: gladiatorial fights" a conversation between a journalist and an expert of the PRISP Center has been published Peter Skorobogatogo with Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), about some aspects of the course of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. The interview was originally done at the end of June for publication (failed) in another mass publication (hence the popular style of presentation), nevertheless, the main theses expressed in it retain meaning even now.
T-72B3 UBH tanks of the Russian Armed Forces with improvised additional protection in the form of improperly attached dynamic protection elements and sandbags. Zaporozhye region, July 2022 (c) Telegram channel "Military Informant"
Journalist, expert of the PRISP Center Pyotr Skorobogaty talked with the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov about what difficulties the Russian armed forces are experiencing on the Ukrainian front, what consequences the supply of Western equipment to the Armed Forces will lead to, and whether Western military corporations will be able to increase the production of arsenals.
- Western weapons have begun to arrive at the disposal of the AFU. In your opinion, how successfully can the Russian army, armed mainly with Soviet equipment, resist them? What technical problems are our armed forces experiencing now?
- If we talk about the weapons of the new family, then, unfortunately, there are practically no fifth-generation combat aircraft in the Russian Armed Forces. The latest version of our Su-34 bombers belongs to the fourth-generation aviation "plus". In addition, we do not have enough high-precision weapons and modern sighting equipment. This further reduces the effectiveness of this type of bombers, which are either forced to use unguided bombs at an altitude within reach of an enemy MANPADS, or are forced to abandon actions to support troops altogether.
On the ground, the Russian army now uses mainly upgraded third-generation tanks. Combat vehicles of the next Armata family still cannot enter service. Even our most modern available T-90 tank is a modification of the outdated T-72. Simply put, the T-90 is a tuning of a Soviet tank. Therefore, it is not entirely fair to demand from them successful resistance to the latest Javelin, NLAW or Matador anti-tank systems. In addition, a paradoxical situation has developed: the Soviet Union was the first country to invent an active protection complex (KAZ). But there are no KAZS on any of our combatant tanks. This, of course, is a shame, because the experience of combat operations in Ukraine has shown that a tank without a KAZ is now not able to survive on the battlefield at all.
At the same time, the Israelis equipped their tanks with active protection complexes, the Americans began to install them on their tanks, but we did not. Therefore, I have a big question for our military and Uralvagonzavod.
- Do you mean active protection complexes?
- yes. It's like in gladiator fights. One fights with a short sword and a shield, and the other with a trident and a net. That is, they were differently armed. So it is now. The AFU is largely an infantry and artillery army, and our Armed Forces perform on armored vehicles. And they are also not equipped with modern really effective protection.
- And what about the infantry?
- We are very much short of infantry. The front is large, and there are not enough people involved in the special operation. Relatively speaking, the Ukrainians are on the defensive, they have a lot of artillery and fighters. We also have to hack the front with an insufficient number of soldiers and on vulnerable tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Now in the Donbas, the Russian side is trying to solve this by using a large amount of artillery, but, as you can see, things are going very slowly.
One more point - the SVO showed that at the moment the airborne troops, roughly speaking, are bad ersatz infantry. Because their aluminum BMDS are generally easily affected, and they have fewer other weapons than motorized infantry.
We also need to remember that Ukrainians have been actively training their army for eight years. They "drove" almost all their infantry through Donbass and actively used their artillery. That is, we used our artillery extremely limited, mainly in Syria or on exercises, and they were in a combat situation. Therefore, their gunners are more experienced. In addition, they learned how to use their old Soviet guns in conjunction with commercial quadrocopters. As a result, they have better, as it is now customary to say, "situational awareness", and they have better targeting. Simply put, in the case of an artillery duel, they often beat us. In general, the use of small drones has made a kind of revolution in the use of artillery. We actually missed this revolution and now we have to catch up "on the go".
SVO has once again confirmed the thesis that you can launch hundreds, thousands of unguided projectiles, which seem to be cheap, but all this power is removed by two guided missiles that accurately hit the target. Two rockets, with all its high cost, will solve more problems than thousands of unguided ones. Old conventional shells do not cause significant damage to the enemy, especially if he is deeply buried in the ground or has taken refuge in concrete bunkers. This is another confirmation of the triumph of precision weapons.
- The storming of Avdiivka, Maryinka are just examples of the fact that you can pour shells on well-fortified areas for a month and not achieve a breakthrough?
- Yes, yes. Actually, the methods of the First World War (to put it bluntly) do not work, especially if you do not have superiority over the enemy in infantry. A combination of modern reconnaissance means (including unmanned ones) combined with a large number of high-precision weapons of destruction could solve the problem of the enemy's positional front - but this is exactly what we lack. Well, plus, we simply don't have enough troops to effectively attack in another direction.
- Western states are now supplying Ukraine with weapons, in particular artillery and MLRS. These deliveries respectively actualized the issues of the range of these guns. Why is distance so important?
- The fact is that Soviet weapons, which are now used by both Russia and Ukraine, whether howitzers or multiple launch rocket systems, they, with few exceptions, hit no further than 20-25 km. Moreover, we have a lot of 122-mm howitzers, which generally fire at only 13 km. Modern Western artillery is longer-range - first of all, we are talking about 155-mm howitzers with a barrel length of 39 calibers, and especially 52 calibers - the latter have a range of up to 40-41 km. The problem of lagging behind the USSR and Russia in the range of artillery fire has been obvious since the eighties, alas. True, now Western equipment is being placed at the disposal of the APU so far in homeopathic doses, but supplies are increasing. Accordingly, during an artillery duel, Ukrainian systems will be able to destroy our batteries, and the return fire will simply not reach the target.
Finally, this issue becomes particularly acute in connection with the launched deliveries of the APU missile systems HIMARS and MLRS, which fire high-precision GMLRS missiles with GPS guidance and with a range of up to 85 km.
- What about aviation?
- There are two problems here - firstly, as already mentioned, we do not have enough high-precision ammunition and accurate means of detection and targeting in aviation, and secondly, the Ukrainian air defense system, operating on Soviet systems (S-300, Buk, etc.), is not suppressed. In addition, Ukrainians have received a large number of MANPADS. As a result, aviation is not able to operate effectively either from high and medium altitudes or from low altitudes, which significantly limits its effectiveness, including in suppressing the same Ukrainian artillery and in influencing enemy troops. To put it bluntly, we do not have air supremacy. The beginning of deliveries to Ukraine of modern Western medium-range air defense systems may exacerbate this problem.
On the supply of Western weapons
- Why is the supply of Western weapons so slow? Is this due to the difficulties of training, or is their sending intentionally dosed?
- At the general political level, there is still no political determination in the West to supply Ukraine with really massive amounts of heavy weapons, since this will require both partial "exposure" of its armed forces and the need to send large numbers of at least instructors to Ukraine for training, and in reality - its military operators for at least partial use of this weapon. The West is not yet ready to go to such a level of involvement and escalation, except for some avid Russophobes, like Poles.
Therefore, supplies to Ukraine are now largely limited to technical and organizational issues that are achievable without such a degree of involvement. That is, it is necessary to reactivate the equipment, carry out routine maintenance. Then we need to train people from the Ukrainian side. Even if the soldiers are trained, they will not shoot in the same way as experienced fighters from Western armies. That is, experience is needed.
But Ukrainians learn very quickly, they turned out to be quite talented warriors. The training takes several weeks, so in fact the supply of weapons is increasing, including in terms of quality (the same HIMARS). By the end of the summer, I think the situation on the fronts may become dramatic. In addition, we do not have mobilization, in fact we are fighting with a peacetime army. And they have already started the fourth wave of mobilization, so there is no shortage of people. Yes, the AFU has largely knocked out the cadre army, but there is the first reserve, which was driven through the ATO. There are second and third echelons. That is, at some point, a positional deadlock may occur, as in the Korean War since 1951, and our army will simply stand up and will not be able to advance further. We're not going to hit them with nuclear weapons.
- However, there is such a thesis that the supply of Western weapons is not so large that reserves can be formed. They are thrown into battle and immediately knocked out. Accordingly, it is difficult for Ukrainians to create a strike group for a counterattack.
- I'm not ready to argue with that. This thesis seems to be uttered in television talk shows for complacency. Yes, we see a picture that the Ukrainian Volkssturm is armed with Maxim or Degtyarev machine guns somewhere in Lviv. But those units that are fighting on the front line are well supplied. They have a Reserve corps and in which case the APU can counterattack. I think they are better armed than the Volkssturm. In fact, underestimating the enemy played a cruel joke on us.
So far, the APU has not demonstrated the ability to make effective offensives above the tactical level - to recapture a village or another. In fact, they have the same tactical problems in the offensive as the Russian side - the attacking forces are usually few in number, they come under artillery fire (which usually cannot be suppressed) and quickly roll back or are unable to hold the newly occupied positions, armored vehicles are massively hit. Let's see if Ukrainians will turn out to be something more in this regard.
- There is another thesis - the number of barrels is not so important as the formation of a shell stock. According to your estimates, how regular is the supply of ammunition now, is there enough of it for fighting? Is there a shell starvation?
- I find it difficult to answer this question. The fact that they are still shelling Donetsk and they do not have a shortage of fuel does not create the impression that the AFU has serious problems with this. They are also living people, they are also dying, but I am not sure that Ukrainians are experiencing serious shell starvation, especially in light of the fact that they have started switching to Western systems with Western supplies of shells. Although I may be mistaken.
I know one thing: unlike Ukrainians, we started out with white gloves. That is, we wanted not a single local resident to get hurt. We opened the fighting as some kind of knightly duel. And this, excuse the expression, is a dirty fight in a doorway where there are no rules.
Testing ground Ukraine
- What is the current state of the Western military-industrial complex? By and large, Americans and Europeans have a chance to dump old weapons, clear warehouses. And it seems like a reboot is underway. There are rumors that Western military corporations need a lot of time to restart their production. And others say that Ukraine is a testing ground for Western weapons, so they will be better prepared for the next clashes.
- Yes, Western armies are getting rid of old equipment, and now they are ordering new ones. Of course, this is beneficial to the states: there is a load, new jobs appear, new taxes, and so on. Any war is a testing ground. For us it was Syria, for the West it was Ukraine. There is nothing shameful here, it would be stupid not to take advantage of it.
About the fact that they have some problems, I think this is the standard cry of Yaroslavna of most military industrialists. They are terribly fond of complaining all over the world that they are missing something. Let's remember how delicious they were during the Cold War. All these productions can be quickly increased. If the Germans, for example, lack chips, they will request them from the Americans. If the Americans - they will ask Germany. For example, did you know that the Abrams tank has a German cannon? They bought a license from them and are doing very well. Often what we consider to be American is in reality pan-Western and is done by joint efforts. At one time, the United States bought licenses for unmanned aerial vehicles from Israel.
If we talk about numbers, then there is no need to overestimate the complaints of the Western military. The total number of weapons and equipment in service with the armies of the entire NATO bloc is very large, and it is many times larger than ours, and moreover, for the most part, it is fresh.
- By and large, is there coordination between various contractors?
- Very often this happens not at the state level, but at the level of private companies. For example, when we wanted to buy universal landing ships of the Mistral type from France, they had to cut production off. Because a number of American components or French parts made under an American license are involved in the manufacture of these ships for their needs. The Americans refused to supply components for the sake of the Russian order, then they had to refine the ship.
Western military companies like Korean components because they are cheap. Having multiple production chains can potentially create trouble. But do not think that these problems will create a barrier to meet their own and Ukrainian needs in technology. There may be interruptions in the supply of individual nodes, but these are only particulars.
