UK Defence Intelligence believes that the fighting capacity and morale of the Russian army will continue to decline due to a large number of officers killed.
This is stated in the daily review of the department.
"Russia has likely suffered devastating losses amongst its mid and junior ranking officers in the conflict. Brigade and battalion commanders likely deploy forwards into harm’s way because they are held to an uncompromising level of responsibility for their units’ performance," the report said.
Similarly, junior officers have had to lead the lowest level tactical actions, as the army lacks the cadre of highly trained and empowered non-commissioned officers (NCOs) who fulfil that role in Western forces.
Intelligence believes that the loss of large proportion of the younger generation of professional officers will likely exacerbate its ongoing problems in modernising its approach to command and control.
In addition, battalion tactical groups (BTGs) which are being reconstituted in Ukraine from survivors of multiple units are likely to be less effective due to a lack of junior leaders.
"With multiple credible reports of localised mutinies amongst Russia’s forces in Ukraine, a lack of experienced and credible platoon and company commanders is likely to result to a further decrease in morale and continued poor discipline," the intelligence said.