Russia's special forces have been active in Ukraine during this war, arguably with more success than their regular and contractor ground force comrades. But we don't hear much about them, lost in the greater noise of Russia's ground force failures. This is why "hybrid warfare" made me yawn. Except when it made me pound my head in frustration because Western fanboys flung panties at the Russians.
This RUSI report looks at Russian unconventional warfare in their current large-scale invasion of Ukraine. It's always good to start with the definitions section:
Unconventional warfare is defined for the purpose of this report as the conduct of covert and clandestine operations, psychological operations, subversion, sabotage, special operations and intelligence and counterintelligence activities aimed at contributing to a state’s military objectives.
The report is interesting. But I'm more interested in one aspect. This definition is pretty much the ingredients list for the much-hyped Russian hybrid warfare that I've endured reading about since the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014.
As I argued, the success of the admittedly quite effective
takeover of Crimea rested on unique circumstances unlikely to be repeated in an attack on a NATO state:
In Crimea, Russia had a major base. Russia could reinforce the base pre-H Hour without a problem.
Ukraine was in chaos with the overthrow of the government and no clear authority in place.
The Ukrainian military was unsure of who to obey even if the government still forming was capable of issuing orders.
Nearly all of the Ukrainian military in Crimea was composed of support troops (a single marine battalion was the only combat unit).
The Ukrainian military was a shambles after years of deliberate near-sabotage by the pro-Russian government that didn't want an effective military.
And Ukraine was not a member of NATO.
And all that before I learned the Obama administration urged the nascent Ukrainian government to stand down from fighting back.
Russia's unconventional warfare in support of the current invasion hasn't gotten much attention because rather than being the basis of the invasion, it has been a supporting player. Indeed, it was forced into a conventional role by the dismal performance of the Russian ground forces and their leadership.
But keep in mind that the role of undermining Ukraine's government and enabling that February 2022 parade-invasion that Putin was assured would take three days--based on taking Kiev as the main effort (and do read the report for what Russia intended)--and then a few weeks of mopping up was a failure:
Russia’s intended defeat mechanism was Ukraine’s internal destabilisation and disorganisation, which was supposed to disable the system of government and military command and control, undermine public trust in government institutions, reduce national stability and minimise aid to Ukraine from international partners. Under such conditions, the Russian military anticipated encountering little sustained or organised resistance.
The lack of proper logistics, the lack of fuel and ammunition, the vulnerability of long Russian convoys, poorly protected even from air raids, all indicate that Russia carried out the invasion as a military demonstration, without seriously considering the need to conduct full-fledged long-term combat operations. To a large extent, the small group of planners thought to repeat the success of the Crimean operation of 2014, which also made no sense from a military point of view and was planned based on the absence of military resistance from Ukraine.
So let's not get too fanboyish over the Russian effort. Although to be fair, apparently the Russian intel people recognized that and advocated delaying the invasion until summer 2022. Putin went ahead in February, of course. Perhaps based on reassurances from former Yanukovych officials in exile in Moscow--who had an interest in following in the wake of the parade--that Ukraine was ripe for the plucking.
And one thing to remember is that Russia's network of unwitting agents faltered when the invasion faltered. Had the Russian invasion looked like it was working, the agent network would have continued on, thinking they were on the winning side. And it did have some success:
In the opening hours of the invasion, senior Russian officials phoned their Ukrainian counterparts to urge passivity to avoid bloodshed.Belarusian officials added to the pressure. And there were text messages, too. Even if Ukrainian officers didn't want to switch sides, there was pressure to quietly stand down in case a lot of other Ukrainian officers were flipping. And enough confusion would be good enough:
While a total surrender of Ukraine would have been desirable, the actual process by which the Russians anticipated occupation of the country was premised on the paralysis of the central Ukrainian apparatus combined with localised surrender of isolated Ukrainian units.
This reflects the possible effects of such a campaign against Taiwan when I wrote my Chinese invasion of Taiwan scenario:
Taiwanese officers turned by the Chinese may order their units to disband or stand down; or Taiwanese units may be given confusing or ineffective orders by defecting officers or Chinese psychological warfare units that will mimic Taiwanese authorities. These actions may take Taiwanese units out of the fight or at least delay them. How many will be vulnerable I do not know, but any defections or collapsing units will demoralize the loyal units and leave Taiwan's leadership uncertain of the loyalty of the military. When trust is broken, people may look to save themselves at the first hint of their own defeat.
As it was, the Russian invaders exploited this campaign to take Kherson city easily. Which I suspected was the explanation for the rapid advances in the south. But little else was dropped in their lap elsewhere.
Still, in territory that Russia occupied, the network was of value to the Russians in securing the area with collaborators.
One problem for relying on special forces was that Ukraine is far too large and willing to resist to replicate the Crimea takeover across a large portion of Ukraine. That wider "hybrid war" failed. The hybrid war craze in the West really annoyed me:
This isn't some new and baffling form of warfare. This is Western refusal to admit that Russia is committing aggression.
All the talk about "hybrid warfare" is just an excuse to avoid admitting that Russia is committing aggression. Ooh. This is new! Let's study it and avoid confronting the Russians until we comprehend this diabolically clever ploy!
Russia mis-used their special forces as recon units for the invading BTGs rather than disrupting Ukrainian rear areas. But Russia didn't expect a war. And as Russia's conventional forces faltered, Russia turned to its special forces to make up for their lack of infantry in the invasion force:
The lack of effective line infantry units caused Spetsnaz units to be deployed mostly as light infantry, which also led to a high level of casualties among these units. Far fewer Spetsnaz were therefore available for special forces missions.
I was once worried that our special forces would be mis-used in Afghanistan in the looming surge:
There seems to be great uncertainty out there as to what we will do in Afghanistan with those new troops. One post explains that a proposal to put another battalion of special forces into Afghanistan is opposed by the special forces because there is no overall strategy for Afghanistan that justifies such a move. Special forces always fear being treated as just really good infantry. They're not.
Fortunately, my worry about mis-using our special forces did not materialize. But the Russians made that mistake. And it got worse since then:
The Washington Post reported that leaked classified US intelligence documents revealed that Russia’s 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose (SPETSNAZ) Brigade (Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff) and two other unspecified SPETSNAZ brigades suffered an estimated 90-95% attrition rate in Ukraine. The Washington Post also reported that the 346th SPETSNAZ Brigade lost almost its entire complement, with only 125 servicemen remaining active out of 900 initially deployed. These high casualty rates suggest that Russia’s most elite forces - Airborne and SPETSNAZ forces - are likely no longer elite.
The units retain the elite labels but they are cheap knock-offs. Do Putin and his generals see the labels on their situation maps and believe elite units are still in the fight?
So there you go. Special forces and so-called hybrid warfare can only do so much. And it was clearly unable to scale up to take an entire large country. I hoped the panty-flinging worship of Russian hybrid warfare died in the failure of the Russian invasion.
The study is useful reading. For the failures, the objectives, and what
worked in areas that Russia did seize control of during the invasion.
Still, had the invasion not been ordered prematurely, perhaps Russia's special forces could have started enough confusion, defection, and passivity to snowball into a rapid Russian victory in the eastern part of Ukraine on a line from Kiev to Odessa.
I hope the Taiwanese--and NATO's Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania--pay as much attention to this feature of Russia's invasion as is focused on ammunition supply, Javelins, Stingers, artillery, and Starlink to defeat a Chinese invasion. Taiwan and those Baltic states do not have the territory to trade for time that Ukraine had to absorb the invasion without falling.
UPDATE: I'd say it is a waste. But are the formations special in anything other than their names?
The Russian military continues to use Spetsnaz units to conduct ground attacks and infantry maneuvers instead of for their primary sabotage and targeting missions, as ISW has previously observed.Lack of trained infantry has led to this. It will take far longer to rebuild Russia's special forces than their regular formations.
NOTE: The picture is a DALL-E creation.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
