The claim that "Russia Displays a New Military Prowess in Ukraine’s East" is just ridiculous:
Western experts who have followed the success of Russian forces in carrying out President Vladimir V. Putin’s policy in Crimea and eastern Ukraine have come to a different conclusion about Russian military strategy. They see a military disparaged for its decline since the fall of the Soviet Union skillfully employing 21st-century tactics that combine cyberwarfare, an energetic information campaign and the use of highly trained special operation troops to seize the initiative from the West. ...
The dexterity with which the Russians have operated in Ukraine is a far cry from the bludgeoning artillery, airstrikes and surface-to-surface missiles used to retake Grozny, the Chechen capital, from Chechen separatists in 2000. In that conflict, the notion of avoiding collateral damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure appeared to be alien.
Russian operations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine do not demonstrate a revived Russian military.
If I may point out the obvious, Russia has not conducted a military campaign thus far. They have carried out a very good special forces operation in Crimea that did not require the intervention of the Russian army's conventional units.
The Russians have arguably failed to do the same in eastern Ukraine, given that they have not been able to simulate an indigenous uprising and spare Moscow the need to order the troops in for an open invasion.
What cyberwarfare has been carried out? The example given was part of cutting of Ukrainian communications that included jamming and cutting cables. Nice. But nothing special.
The "energetic" information warfare has fooled only the Russian people themselves. Russia gained few votes in the UN General Assembly which voted against Russia on the issue of Crimea. Who thinks that even Crimea was an indigenous uprising against Ukraine?
And the special forces seized the initiative from the West? What does that even mean? "The West" wasn't in Crimea. And isn't in eastern Ukraine.
No, this assessment by an analyst quoted in the piece is far more accurate and contradicts the theme of the article:
“The operation reveals very little about the current condition of the Russian armed forces,” said Mr. McDermott. “Its real strength lay in covert action combined with sound intelligence concerning the weakness of the Kiev government and their will to respond militarily.”
Russia's operations don't even rise to the level of our special forces-led military campaign in Afghanistan in 2001. That involved kinetics and inter-service cooperation. That campaign was impressive, but didn't say a lot about our conventional ground forces. It said a lot about our special forces and CIA, our air power, the resilience of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, and the weakness of the Taliban in rallying Afghans.
What can the Russians really claim as a signal for their military's revival? They airlifted troops into their Sevastopol base and crossed the Kerch Strait? In the face of zero armed opposition.
I have strong doubts about whether the Russians could pull off an invasion of eastern Ukraine in the face of Ukrainian conventional and irregular resistance. The first 3-5 days might look okay. But the Russians will have too few troops to control too large an area in the face of resistance from within the area and troops harassing the Russians from free Ukraine territory.
We have not seen Russian military prowess and I don't think the Russians really want to start an actual war and risk the wholly unearned military reputation that so many seem intent on giving them.
