Despite heavy bombardments, the local forces seemed reluctant to engage the opposition. These problems, according to Gerasimov, have been corrected by embedding Russian advisors with SAA units and supplying new weapons. Russian military advisors are present in SAA units down to battalion level: “They gather intelligence, plan and command operations under orders coming from the headquarters in Hmeymim,” Gerasimov said.
I'd forgotten, but this isn't the first time Russia learned this lesson. In the aftermath of Iranian offensives that inflicted serious defeats on the Iraqi army in 1986, the Soviets sent to their then-ally thousands of new advisors to frontline Iraqi units:
In the aftermath of [the offensive named] Dawn Eight, Moscow dispatched thousands of advisors, may of whom were sent to frontline units, to prop up Iraq.
The detail isn't in that summary of a book-length manuscript that languishes waiting for me to self-publish after almost [if you dim the lights and squint, I admit] getting it published years ago), but my memory is that it was down to battalion level. Which is why the article's wording triggered my memory of that event.
And this reality is why it sometimes frustrated me that there has been resistance to sending American advisors down to battalion levels to help our allies fight.
It's kind of funny that more than 30 years later after that Soviet effort in Iraq that Russia is (uneasily) aligned with Iran in Syria while Iraq is an American ally (albeit with unfortunate Iranian influence, which is nothing new and was in fact one of the reasons Iraq invaded Iran in 1980).
