– The Russian leadership made a lot of idiotic decisions at the beginning of the war. Now our commanders want to take them [idiotismissa] Closed. This is how the situation could be characterized.
This is what a 34-year-old Ukrainian soldier writes to . He severely criticizes the leadership of the Ukrainian army, and therefore does not appear in the story under his own name. Rating could lead to problems.
We use a military name Taras.
has been in contact with Taras throughout the war. Taras joined the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces on the first day of the full-scale war with Russia. Now he serves in the battalion, which was attached to the 41st Ukrainian mechanized brigade at the end of June.
– When we started as part of a brigade, the brigade commander started giving our battalion almost suicidal tasks. Soldiers were sent to attack without the support of artillery, tanks or anything else, says Taras.
A bump in combat ability
The Taras brigade is stationed in the Donetsk region. It has taken part in the battles in the directions of Nju-York and Chasiv Yar, i.e. precisely in those areas where Ukraine has suffered territorial losses recently.
Taras is not the only one who criticizes the brigade’s leadership. Also the commander of Taras has criticized brigade leadership publicly on social media in July, and the brigade’s tensions became news in Ukrainian media.
The commander blamed the area losses directly on the brigade leadership. According to Taras, as a result of the news, inspection visits have been made to the battalion with the aim of “closing the men’s mouths”.
Spirits are not high among Taras’ comrades in arms.
– The situation looks very dark, I can say that. The Russians sensed the weakness in the control of our troops and crawled forward constantly.
The battalion suffered as many losses in one week as during the entire war in the various battles in which the Taras battalion has taken part.
In the comparison map below, you can see how the situation has changed in the Donetsk region during June and July. Slide the vertical line.
Now the battalion has lost its fighting ability as a result of the losses, says Taras. Ukraine makes it easier for the Russians to advance because many of the commanders are incompetent, so-called jees men, Taras tells .
– They are people who don’t know how to think for themselves and who just follow orders. They agree to everything to please their superiors, says Taras.
According to Taras, things took a turn for the worse after he was named army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi in February. He replaced the one who was favored by the army To Valery Zaluzhny.
The new commander-in-chief Syrskyi, 58, received his military training in Moscow and is nicknamed “the butcher”. Nick name host originating from the city of Bahmut, for which Syrskyi was responsible and in whose defensive battle many Ukrainians died.
Syrskyi himself says in the latest in the interviewthat Ukraine’s tactics have changed, and Ukraine is not trying to keep the lines up at any cost.
Taras’ claims are harsh, and that’s why asked two Ukrainian experts if the situation in the Ukrainian army is really as bad as Taras says.
The new commander-in-chief under review
Political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko According to military experts, the attitude towards Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi is divided. They may give opposite assessments about him, says Fesenko.
According to Fesenko, the criticism towards Syrski is not completely justified, and according to him, it does not matter so much whether the commander was educated in the Soviet Union or whether he represents a more Western school of thought.
The Ukrainian army has been trying to break away from the mental burden of the Soviet army, but the process has been slow. Many of the commanders have received their training in the Soviet Union, and within the army there has been a crossover between Western and more Soviet-style methods.
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The situations on the field can be very different, Fesenko points out.
– In some units, the commander represents the Soviet school and in others the Western countries.
Therefore, according to Fesenko, the biggest influence is the commander’s personality, not the school.
– And when the situation is difficult, the military commander must carry out a mission to launch an attack or capture a certain settlement at any cost.
Back to the Soviet Army
A military analyst completely disagrees with political researcher Fesenko Oleg Zhdanov. Ždanov speaks directly to about Syrky and the situation in the Ukrainian army.
– The situation changed radically after coming to Syrsky. The Ukrainian army took two steps back.
Ždanov is a colonel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine who is no longer in regular service. He posts daily on Youtube war analyseswhich are followed by hundreds of thousands.
According to Ždanov, Syrskyi is turning the Ukrainian army back into a Soviet army, especially in the style of commanding troops.
– This is becoming an increasingly bigger problem for us, Zhdanov says.
According to Ždanov, a downright purge should be carried out in the chain of command of the Ukrainian army.
– Officers who have received their training in Ukraine must be appointed to the positions. And those who have been in the trenches, and not any “parquet generals”, Ždanov reckons.
There is a shortage of soldiers
Ukraine has suffered from a chronic shortage of men against a much larger enemy. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi approved a new mobilization law in May, thanks to which the minimum age for starting a business was reduced from 27 to 25 years.
Private Taras hasn’t noticed that the situation has gotten any easier, and he’s amazed at how slowly the law was approved.
– We have a couple of new guys, even motivated ones, but they are a drop in the ocean. And they are often sent to the most difficult places, says Taras.
According to Ždanov, the new mobilization law is working and the situation regarding the soldiers will become easier.
Zelenskyi has also communicated that the crew situation has improved. Instead, the problem is the weapons: to Zelensky by There are as many as fourteen brigades in Ukraine that do not have enough weapons.
There is a shortage of weapons
Ukraine’s situation on the frontline eased after the US aid package, which had been stalled for more than half a year, finally went through in April. However, the arrival of military supplies to the front is slow. German think tank wrote in Junethat in fact only half of the military smoke promised to Ukraine has arrived in Ukraine.
Many military experts and politicians have criticized the West for supplying weapons to Ukraine only to the extent that Ukraine can barely hold the front line in place.
Ždanov is on the same lines. In his opinion, Ukraine’s difficult frontline situation is ultimately related above all to the lack of weapons.
– The number of delivered weapons does not meet the requirements of the army, says Ždanov.
He believes that if there were enough weapons, Ukraine would be able to solve its problems with the Russians on the battlefield, despite the internal problems of the armed forces.
Private Taras has examples of the lack of weapons.
– The commander forbids firing more than 5–10 grenades a day. It’s absurd when you consider that grenades are literally raining down from the enemy side. In addition, guided aerial bombs are constantly flying at our stations, Taras reports.
However, he blames the bad situation more on his commanders.
– When the command is like this, Western weapons don’t matter. I can’t say that everything is completely hopeless, but many soldiers have been at the front for more than two years now, and they are worn out.