Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi wrote an article for CNN entitled "On the Modern Design of Military Operations in the Russo-Ukrainian War: In the Struggle for the Initiative". In it, the general talked about his vision of important changes to the approaches to warfare and the main tasks for 2024 for the Defense Forces.
According to him, the most important task will be to adopt a new point of view on the forms and methods of using the Defense Forces for victory. The reason for the changes is the development of weapons and military equipment, especially unmanned systems.
"Unmanned systems, along with other new types of weapons, are almost the only tool for getting out of positional military operations," the general wrote.
The commander-in-chief believes that there are some other factors that affect the search for new forms of military use. Among them are the reduction of military support, the possibility of Russia provoking conflicts following the example of Israel and Yemen, the exhaustion of artillery and air defense reserves of partners, insufficient effectiveness of sanctions.
Also, Valery Zaluzhnyi emphasized that Russia has a significant advantage in the mobilization of human resources, while the state institutions of Ukraine have "the inability to improve the state of staffing of the Defense Forces without the use of unpopular measures."
The general also mentioned the imperfection of the legal framework governing Ukraineʼs defense-industrial complex, partial monopolization of the industry and dependence on supplies by allies.
Valery Zaluzhnyi wrote that an attempt to use the achievements of progress in the development of the latest technologies will allow to win the scientific, technical, technological and tactical battle, and will also lead to savings and conservation of resources by both Ukraine and its partners.
He believes that a new design of operations should be created. The decisive conditions are the achievement of absolute superiority in the air, depriving Russia of the opportunity to attack or defend, increasing the mobility of troops, safe access to the designated borders, and others.
In order to implement these conditions, it is already necessary to "consider them as separate":
- digital field creation operation;
- radio-electronic situation control operation;
- operation of combined strike drones and cyber assets;
- logistic operation.
They are mastered and developed.
"In order to master new forms and methods, the Defense Forces need to create a completely new state system of technological rearmament," Zaluzhnyi added.
And he summarized that by 2024, the main efforts should be focused on creating a system of providing the Defense Forces with high-tech means, implementing a new philosophy of preparing and conducting military operations taking into account limitations, and mastering new capabilities for conducting combat operations as soon as possible.
- The previous time, Valerii Zaluzhnyiʼs article was published on November 1 in The Economist. Then the general warned that the war was entering a protracted positional stage. And in such a war, Russia has more chances. So now Ukraine needs airplanes, drones, electronic warfare equipment and technologies for demining dense minefields.