The Ukrainian line of defense is slowly collapsing. How does it happen on different levels? Why does it happen? And what to do with it? — high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine explain

After the fall of Avdiivka in February 2024 and the breakthrough of the Russian army near Ocheretyne, the Russians began an offensive along the entire front line in the Donetsk region, and it turned out to be successful. Even the operation of the Armed Forces in the Kursk region could not stop it. Now the Russian army is seven kilometers from Pokrovsk, has almost come close to Kurakhove, Toretsk and Chasiv Yar. The offensive on Zaporizhzhia will begin In the coming days. Obviously, the Russians will try to seize as much territory as possible before the inauguration of Donald Trump. Why are they advancing so quickly? What mistakes does the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces make? How to fix them? To answer these questions, Babel correspondent Oksana Kovalenko spoke with military personnel who have experience in the highest positions in the vertical command of the Armed Forces, from the level of the brigade to the level of the General Staff. Almost every speaker of ours said the same thing during the conversation: "A small Soviet army cannot defeat a large Soviet army."

Operational-tactical level: An officer with experience working in the brigade headquarters tells

The Russians are advancing because they changed their tactics nine months ago.

Every day, along the entire front line, in small groups on motorcycles, buggies or on foot, they look for weak points in our defense. They send 3-10 people on a trial assault. If they managed to advance, the Russians realize that there is a hole in the defense — and they send 30-50 people there in a stream. During this time, we should come up with and scale countermeasures. Because usually as soon as the Russians jump into our trench [in the section held by the problematic unit], our guys jump out and run away. Not because they are cowards, but because they do not have sufficient training, and most importantly, they do not understand whether artillery will protect them. Because if the enemy has approached you within 50 meters, and your artillery is silent and your drones are not flying, it seems that you are left alone, without any support. Fortunately, this is not the case in every brigade.

Problems at the level of brigades appear when mistakes are made at the level of the General Staff or when decisions are not made quickly enough.

Now, all decisions are tied to one person [chief Oleksandr Syrskyi], but one person cannot make all decisions. When he goes to ground zero and commands one operational-strategic group of troops (OSGT) — everything else "freezes". The Russians are advancing, our brigades are waiting for the order, it is always very late.

When the generals gave orders for the use of “Iskanders” in the Russian Armed Forces, the decision took about four hours. As soon as they brought the decision down to the level of colonels, they started making it in 15 minutes. Therefore, for some purposes, "Iskanders" began to arrive very quickly. Everything takes a long time with us. Delegation of authority is needed so that officers are actually in command, not just handing down orders from above. If everything is done right, we have every chance [to stop the offensive].

People do not want to fight, not because they are cowards, but because they receive distorted information.

Those who get to the front say that there is no ammunition, bad management, a bad combatant or brigade commander, no one covers us — of course, no one wants to go there then. The situation when summonses are issued as a punishment also does not motivate to go to the front. This is a serious mistake.

Why are there no problems with people in some brigades and there is a queue there? Because there is trust in them: they will teach, they will protect people and do everything wisely. A man who goes to war accepts to some extent the possibility that he will die. But people are not ready to die stupidly when you have been thrown somewhere and you do not understand what mission you are performing. And you should not divide people into cowards and non-cowards.

Operational level: An officer with experience of interaction with the headquarters of operational-tactical groups (OTG) and operational-strategic groups of troops (OSGT) tells

The problem is that OSTG and OTG do not fulfill their duties, but transfer them to others.

The OTG command must establish interaction between the brigades included in this OTG, prepare cities and settlements for defense, plan operations. The chief of staff of OTG is the brain. Unfortunately, this is not the case at the front now.

In one of the directions, the defense of the city was entrusted to the brigade commander, who was supposed to take care of the defense of the positions so that the enemy did not reach that city. The OTG command withdrew from this task. There is little or no interaction between adjacent brigades in the same direction, and this prevents commanders from supporting each other and holding a single front line.

The front is held on the initiative of the commanders of specific units in this direction. It often happens that one unit holds the front line, but the neighbours to the left or right fall on the flanks, so even a strong unit has to withdraw from its positions so as not to be surrounded. It happens that the chief of staff of the OTG does not have sufficient competence and relevant experience, because before that he served in the headquarters of the battalion, not the brigade.

In addition, the army lacks reserves.

The Kursk operation is now diverting forces that would be useful in the Donetsk direction. With the Kursk operation, our forces showed what they are capable of, but now it is necessary to replace everything and withdraw in order to release the reserves and transfer them to the Pokrovsk direction, as well as to Zaporizhzhia, where the Russians are preparing to launch an offensive every day.

Strategic level. An officer with experience of interaction with the General Staff tells

The weakest link in the command system of the Armed Forces is the General Staff. In recent years, it has not performed its functions.

Failures in the military and state administration began even with the previous head [Valeryi Zaluzhnyi]. The new commander-in-chief [Oleksandr Syrskyi] was also unable to correct [the situation].

The General Staff is brains, wisdom and decision-making talent. His task is to plan strategic operations, form campaigns, develop a strategy, prepare reserves, formulate messages for society. The chief of the General Staff should be a strategist who takes into account all aspects: both military and political. He should think about what can be done to make it difficult for Russia to fight, to shake its regime. I still do not see such a strategist in us.

Currently, the General Staff does not function at the strategic level, but at the level of operational command — it plugs holes. Chief Commissar Oleksandr Syrskyi tried to change this, he appointed an audit of the General Staff and the Central Committee. But he did not draw conclusions from his results and did not make the appropriate decisions. The system of recruiting and training the army remained the same as it was under Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and this is the most serious mistake. Syrskyi should always be close to the president, at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The Chief of the General Staff should also work in Kyiv, and not manage a specific operation in a specific direction.

The absence of a unified, structured and hierarchical structure of the Defense Forces is another reason for our failures.

At the beginning of the great war, the Armed Forces fought in small tactical groups. In essence, we were plugging holes. The groups did not have a clear staffing and hierarchical structure, consisted of different units that were taken from different brigades — it was a mess. Therefore, there was no clear interaction between the units. At first it worked. Since the war changed, it just creates a mess. The brigade commander is now assigned to 20 different units. He lacks the competence to lead them, because his level is brigade command. A corpus structure with a clear hierarchy is required.

Failure in the construction of fortifications usually occurs when the military leadership and military administration are not coordinated.

A few months ago, there were cases when newly built fortifications were taken by the enemy, and our military did not even enter them. The reason is that the General Staff did not plan how the units would withdraw and which lines would be advantageous for defense. It turned out that the fortifications were built in the wrong place.

The Russians do bug work at all levels, and the Defense Forces usually donʼt.

The new Russian tactic looks like this: they infiltrate in small groups, take our weak positions at points, accumulate there and complicate the defense of neighbouring positions, force them to leave — this is a very old but effective tactic from the World War II. At the operational level, the Russians quickly create new groups and can concentrate them for an offensive. At the strategic level, they decided to wage a war of attrition.

The command of the types of troops performs functions that are not characteristic of them.

For example, the Ground Forces Command became the Armed Forces in the Armed Forces. The commander of the Ground Forces now commands military operations, is responsible for communications units, operational support is wrong. He must be responsible for the development of his type of troops and their training. For example, if the Russians started dropping the guided aerial bombs, it is he who should think about how to counter this. He must adapt his troops to todayʼs conditions, change training and tactics to suit them, must "generate troops".

The counteroffensive of 2023 was a mistake.

If it was known that the enemy knew about our plans, was preparing a deeply echeloned defense and this would lead to many casualties, this could not be allowed. We lost the resource that our partners gave us. And we have not established a system of military training to replenish losses.

Strategic level. A former high-ranking employee of the General Staff tells

In 2022, elemental defense contained the first stage of Russian aggression. But the Russian army recovered, reformatted and at the same time did not violate its management system, that is, it did not make changes in the military management bodies. Since 2019, we have violated the management system at least three times, changing senior management. Several dozen generals changed, followed by the change of three times as many colonels. Hundreds of qualified personnel are now "at your disposal".

Another problem is the lack of the required amount of arms supplies. We do not have our own production of appropriate weapons, there is no resource to support both the Defense Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine as a belligerent state in general. It is necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire country. We have up to a million soldiers in reserve. A fair approach to mobilization for military service is needed, there must be adequate training of people so that they understand what combat operations are and receive the necessary skills. The whole country should work for mobilization, not only the territorial recruit center (TRC).

The Kursk operation played its positive role. Kursk territories are worth keeping, they can be a trump card in negotiations. If the troops are withdrawn from there, it will not solve the problem in Donbas. And most importantly, the group that the Russians created there to liberate the Kursk region is so powerful that if the Defense Forces withdraw, they will enter the Sumy region to the same depth as we entered Kursk, or even more, and then hostilities will take place on our territory, not on the territory of the enemy.

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