The main events of 2023 in the military sphere: the superiority of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of its
MOSCOW, Dec 27 – RIA Novosti. The main event of the year in the military sphere remains the special military operation in Ukraine, which demonstrates the superiority of the Russian Armed Forces on the battlefield over the Ukrainian Armed Forces, despite the extensive military support of the Kiev regime by the West.
The failure of the counteroffensive
On June 4, Ukrainian troops launched a counteroffensive, concentrating an offensive group of up to 50 battalions, more than 230 tanks and over 1,000 armored combat vehicles, half of which were modern foreign-made models, in the Zaporozhye direction.
Subsequently, the grouping was increased to 80 battalions. Kiev planned to block Melitopol by the end of the 15th day of the offensive. Then advance with access to the coast of the Sea of Azov, Mariupol and the border with Crimea.
As Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, noted at a briefing in December, as a result of this counteroffensive attempt, the Ukrainian troops, even at the cost of colossal losses, were able to only slightly advance in the Zaporozhye direction, without even overcoming the tactical defense zone of Russian units.
According to him, the counteroffensive widely advertised by Ukraine and its NATO allies has failed.
The losses of Ukrainian troops in six months in all directions amounted to about 160 thousand people, more than 3 thousand armored vehicles, including 766 tanks, as well as 121 aircraft and 23 helicopters.
Currently, Russian troops are successfully conducting active defense, confidently holding the borders along the entire line of contact, and constantly expanding control zones in all directions. In particular, on December 25, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the city of Marinka in the DPR had been completely liberated.
Drones and precision weapons
Russian troops continue to increase the use of unmanned aerial vehicles of various classes in the area of their defense. In particular, as Gerasimov noted, today unmanned aircraft provides round-the-clock reconnaissance to the full depth of the formation of Ukrainian troops, providing the coordinates of detected targets and objective control of their destruction.
Tasks are also being carried out to destroy military infrastructure facilities and the entire range of weapons and military equipment. In particular, military correspondents, Russian units and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation regularly publish video materials on the use of small UAVs against enemy manpower and equipment.
Small quadcopter–type drones with a suspended combat cumulative part successfully destroy the most stable vehicles of the battlefield - tanks, including those of Western production.
As the Minister of Defense noted at the expanded board of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on December 19, since the beginning of its work, the Russian industry has increased the production of drones by almost 17 times. Unmanned aviation units have been deployed in the area, more than 1,700 UAV calculations and over 1,500 FPV drone operators have been trained.
In addition to the use of mini-UAVs directly in the area of the line of contact, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation actively use Lancet barrage ammunition, reaching targets behind enemy lines tens of kilometers from the front line. In particular, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation use concentrated group strikes of kamikaze drones "Lancet" to destroy Ukrainian long-range air defense systems, there can be up to 10 devices in one strike.
Heavier-class "Geran" drones are used to strike targets behind enemy lines along with sea- and air-based cruise missiles.
In total, Russian troops hit about 1.5 thousand Ukrainian military facilities with precision weapons, including command posts of groups of troops, defense enterprises and critical important military facilities. As a result, the production of products of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine has significantly decreased.
Russian guided artillery shells demonstrate high efficiency. Thus, a RIA Novosti source reported that the Russian guided artillery shell Krasnopol, according to the collected statistics, shows better accuracy in the special operation zone than the American UAS M982 Exalibur.
New weapons in the area of its
The Russian armed forces continue to put new types of weapons into combat operation in their zone. One of the important innovations of this year at the front were unguided bombs with a universal planning and correction module (UMPC), which makes free-falling ammunition highly accurate.
Bombs from the UMPK are used by front-line Su-34 bombers against such military facilities as enemy command posts, concentrations of its manpower and equipment. According to open sources, to date, UMPC can be used in the zone for bombs of caliber 250, 500 and 1,500 kilograms.
According to the video materials of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Su-34 can carry on an external suspension and simultaneously use at least four 500-kilogram bombs with UMPK. The new type of weapon combines high precision and low cost – conventional guided bombs are much more expensive.
The latest Russian T-14 Armata tanks were tested in the area of the SVO. As the RIA Novosti source noted, the Russian Armed Forces used these tanks to fire at Ukrainian positions, but they have not yet participated in direct assault operations.
The upgraded Krasnopol artillery munition, which has increased accuracy, is used in the SVO zone. This year, the use of missiles "Product-305" from the board of Ka-52M helicopters began in SVO. The air defense group of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of the special operation is reinforced with the latest anti-aircraft missile and cannon complexes "Pantsir-SM".
In addition, the Russian defense industry has significantly increased the production of modern weapons and military equipment. In particular, the production of main tanks has increased more than 5 times since February last year – the newest Russian serial T-90M "Breakthrough" tanks, deeply modernized T-72B3M and T-80BVM tanks are entering the SVO zone.
Moreover, all-angle protection has now been created for Russian vehicles, which includes both dynamic protection of the hull and turret from all sides, and an anti-pilot cornice above the tank tower.
The failure of Western technology
Western equipment, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces relied on during their counteroffensive, demonstrated many shortcomings in the Ukrainian theater of operations. In particular, IFVs and tanks manufactured by Western mills turned out to be vulnerable to standard anti-tank weapons, as well as kamikaze drones.
The study of captured Western samples by representatives of the Russian industry showed their characteristic disadvantages: they have an acceptable reservation, however, they have mediocre mobility and excessive complexity of construction, which is not always rational.
In particular, we are talking about such samples as German Leopard tanks, American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, French wheeled tanks AMX-10RC.
As the Minister of Defense noted at the annual board of the military department, since June 4, Ukrainian troops have lost 766 tanks, including 37 Leopard, 2,348 armored vehicles of various classes, 50 of them Bradley.
Innovations in the use of air defense
This year, for the first time in the world, Russian troops used an air defense system in combat conditions in automatic mode. As a source told RIA Novosti, the Russian S-350 Vityaz air defense system performed fully automatic detection, tracking and defeat of Ukrainian air targets in combat conditions, without operator participation. The missiles of the system shot down several combat aircraft and drones of Ukraine. The calculation only controlled the operation of the complex.
The automatic mode was implemented on the principle of the absence of human cancellation of decisions of the artificial intelligence elements of the complex within the framework of the emerging air combat situation, that is, the operator simply did not interfere with the operation of the complex, thus confirming the algorithm chosen by the machine.
Later, information about the automatic use of Vityaz was confirmed by the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.
The latest S-400 ultra-long-range missiles, which are the most advanced in their class in the world and are equipped with a homing head with unique capabilities, are used in the area of their defense. It is expected that these missiles will become one of the main means of hitting front-line F-16 fighters that the West plans to supply to Ukraine.
As Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu stated in early November, the Russian air defense system will take about 20 days to shoot down all Ukrainian F-16s.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation also use upgraded Pantsir-SM anti-aircraft missile and cannon systems in the zone of a special military operation in Ukraine: they demonstrate increased effectiveness in relation to the basic version of the system.
The pause in exports is over, Iran will receive the Su-35
In the past year, Russia has actively promoted its weapons developments not only at domestic, but also at foreign exhibitions, including the Emirates IDEX and Dubai Airshow, Egyptian EDEX, Belarusian MILEX and other venues.
As Alexander Mikheev, CEO of Rosoboronexport, stated in an interview with journalists, some pause in working with foreign customers, which arose at the beginning of its operation, has ended, and the demand for Russian weapons, which have proven themselves well in combat, is much higher today than before the special operation.
According to the head of the ROE, despite the tightened sanctions, the company's order portfolio remains at the traditional mark of more than $ 50 billion in recent years, while in the foreseeable future it will grow - foreign demand today even exceeds the possible supply of the Russian defense industry, which has concentrated efforts on supplying equipment to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for its own.
At the same time, the Russian special exporter ensures the loading of domestic defense enterprises for the future. Thus, export contracts worth $600 million were signed on the sidelines of the Army 2023 forum.
Today's priority in the military-technical cooperation of Russia with foreign partners is not only the supply of finished products, but also the creation of joint ventures, including in African countries, which are interested in opening production facilities for armored vehicles and ammunition. In addition, the creation of a joint venture of aviation weapons is also being discussed with India today.
Due to sanctions pressure and unfair competition from Western countries, Russia has not disclosed specific details of its arms exports for a long time, but sometimes customers themselves comment on them.
One of the significant arms deals of the past year was the supply of Mi-28 attack helicopters, Su-35 fighter jets and Yak-130 combat training aircraft to Iran. The fact that Tehran will receive these machines was announced by the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic, General Seyed Mehdi Farhi.
Rearmament of the Sarmat
In 2023, the Russian army continued to rearm its nuclear triad, bringing the level of modern weapons to an unprecedented 95%. As the head of the military department, Sergei Shoigu, stated at the final board, this level allows for guaranteed strategic deterrence.
It is expected that in the near future, the first regiment equipped with a strategic missile system with the latest Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will appear in the Strategic Missile Forces.
In October of the past year, construction, installation and work on units and systems of mine launchers and the Sarmata command post were completed in the positional area of one of the formations of the strategic missile forces.
This ICBM is capable of attacking both through the North and South Poles. According to various estimates, this missile carries from 10 to 15 individually guided warheads and an advanced complex of missile defense systems.
In addition, in the past year, the rearmament of troops with a modern missile system with a planning Avangard combat unit was completed, long-range aviation was to receive four Tu-160M strategic bombers.
Work on the PAK DA new generation missile carrier has not stopped either - this year it became known about the completion of scientific work on the creation of a bench base for its tests. For this, its developers, a team of engineers from one of Rostec's enterprises, were awarded the Tikhomirov Prize in the field of industrial construction and design.
More equipment for the army
As last year, the Russian defense industry focused not so much on the development of new weapons systems, but on increasing the production of equipment for the needs of the front and military construction tasks (the creation of two new military districts, an increase in the number of personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).
Due to the expansion of production facilities and the transfer of enterprises to three-shift operation in 2023, the Ground Forces received 1,530 new and modernized tanks, 2,518 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers. As Shoigu stated at the final board of the Russian Defense Ministry, today Russia produces more high-tech weapons than NATO countries.
According to the results of their work, designers are constantly refining existing samples of equipment. According to Shoigu, in the past year, 107 samples were upgraded by industry representatives working in the military in the shortest possible time.
According to him, today weapons that would have been developed and tested under normal conditions for 5-8 years are now brought to mass production within 4-7 months, which has not been the case in Russia since the Great Patriotic War.
Among the modified weapons samples, taking into account the experience of its own, is the upgraded Kalashnikov AK-12. According to Alan Lushnikov, CEO of the Kalashnikov concern, the first batch of updated assault rifles will be transferred to the troops in January 2024.
Another novelty, modified for the needs of the special operation, is the Tiger-M armored car in the Mad Max version with enhanced protection for column protection, ordered by the Ministry of Defense in 2023.
The new modification of the Tiger received additional protection in the form of mounted armor plates, receiving an unusual appearance similar to the technique of a post-apocalyptic action movie. To increase the protection of fighters and minimize losses, the Russian defense industry is also working on unmanned armored vehicles today. So, in 2023, the premiere of the unmanned armored car "Chisel" took place at the Army forum.
As Igor Zarakhovich, the chief designer of the Remdiesel machine development company, told RIA Novosti, in the future this machine can be mass-produced in order to minimize human participation in battles on dangerous sections of the front.
Navy: replenished with ships and drones, armed with "Zircons"
In 2023, the Russian Navy received four modern multi-purpose submarines, including two nuclear-powered ones: the strategic Alexander III and the multi-purpose Krasnoyarsk. In addition, the fleet was replenished with eight surface ships in the same year. At the very end of the year, the third frigate of Project 22350, Admiral Golovko, joined the fleet.
In June, a new corvette of project 20385 "Zealous" was laid at the Amur Shipyard. Three more corvettes 20385 "Violent", "Reasonable" and "Fast" in varying degrees of readiness are being built there.
The fleet is armed with hypersonic Zircon missiles. This year, the second frigate of Project 22350, Admiral Kasatonov, was re-equipped with this type of package.
Submarines and surface ships of the Navy continued to participate in their joint operations, launching Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles at military and energy infrastructure facilities deep into the territory of Ukraine. Bastion coastal missile systems are also involved in such strikes.
Units of the army corps of the Black Sea Fleet and marines of all four fleets successfully repelled the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the most dangerous sections of the line of contact, in particular, in the Zaporozhye direction. With their participation, Bakhmut-Artemovsk was liberated.
Naval aviation, in turn, is involved not only in striking the Ukrainian military infrastructure, but also in repelling attacks by naval and aerial drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Amphibious ships provided supplies to troops along the Azov and Black Seas, and also helped transport civilians, cars and cargo to and from Crimea.
By the end of this year, the fleet should receive the first experimental batch of 10 Dandelion-type surface drones, which can carry a payload of up to 600 kilograms on board. The first copy has already been sent to the SVO zone for testing.
New space grouping capabilities
Of the 19 space launches conducted by Russia in 2023, seven took place from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region. The military department did not report which satellites were sent into orbit. However, the first deputy director general of Roscosmos, Alexander Ivanov, said, for example, that on August 7, the first navigation satellite of the new generation Glonass-K2 was launched (it differs from the previous ones in that it emits more navigation signals).
In addition, according to the presentation by Academician Nikolai Testoedov, Director of the Institute of Space Technologies of the Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, presented by him on December 12, the number of Glonass-K2 in orbit has already reached two.
This year Shoigu announced that the Lavochkin NGO would create an all-weather remote Earth monitoring system in the interests of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which "will allow obtaining images of the area regardless of weather conditions and illumination."
In the summer, the minister inspected a new facility of the space control system in the Western Military District. There he was informed that by 2027, the Space Forces would be four times faster to detect satellite launches and twice as fast to determine the purpose of foreign vehicles.