Ukraine’s armed forces are now far more combat-effective than at the start of the war with Russia in 2014 and 2015
In the past seven years, Ukraine has spent more on its military than any country in the former Soviet Union except Russia. It now has the second largest army in the region, an experienced army reserve, a new command-and-control system, and a significant share of its arsenal comprises modern weapons. This would likely be sufficient to resist any assaults by the two “corps” of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and even the handful of battalion tactical groups from the Russian army that have been “assigned” to the region.
During the last active phase of the war, the Ukrainian military twice suffered brutal defeat against a relatively small adversary, first outside Ilovaisk in August 2014 and then near Debaltseve in January and February 2015. Military leaders in Kyiv
estimate that Ukrainian troops encountered six Russian battalion tactical groups, or about 4,000 soldiers. Today, this would be too few men to overcome Ukraine’s armed forces.
How the Ukrainian military has grown stronger
- As is required for any country participating in NATO operations, Kyiv has implemented the so-called “J Structure,” forming special groups tasked with intelligence, logistics, defense planning, and more. It’s unclear how suited this structure is to Ukraine’s military, but it’s clearly superior to the old Soviet-style command-and-control structure on which Ukraine relied in 2014 and 2015, which made it impossible for Kyiv to manage its troops effectively.
- Active troops have been trained under a new system that is based on combat experience. Additionally, troops regularly undergo training operations at the line of contact in the Donbas, opposite the separatists. Kyiv has dramatically expanded how much it spends on these exercises, and military instructors from NATO member states are also on the ground, helping to prepare soldiers. (Moscow has demanded an end to this practice.)
- Ukraine now has new means of reconnaissance and target designation that it lacked in 2014 and 2015: a large fleet of modern unmanned aerial drones, counter-battery radars (which can locate the origin of artillery projectiles), and more. Kyiv is also now receiving intelligence data from NATO members that recently started deploying advanced battlefield reconnaissance and target designation equipment over Ukraine, including the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft.
- To complement its new targeting capacity, the Ukrainian military has also started manufacturing new precision-guided munitions.
- Kyiv has largely replaced its small, inefficient fleet of military aircraft (in 2014, this was first and foremost Ukraine’s Mi-24 helicopters and Su-25 jets) with TB2 combat UAVs from the Turkish manufacturer Bayraktar. This weapon (along with other UAVs) was arguably the pillar of Azerbaijan’s decisive victory in the 2020 war for control of Nagorno Karabakh. Ukraine has already bought 48 Turkish UAVs (apparently more than Azerbaijan, which used less than 20 of these machines in Karabakh). Kyiv has also ordered another 24 Turkish UAVs and recently signed a contract for licensed domestic production of the Bayraktar TB2.
- Ukrainian combat units now have a large supply of modern, portable anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). First, there’s the American FGM-148 Javelin. So far, Kyiv has received roughly 47 launchers from the United States and an unknown number from Estonia, as well as 180 missiles. Second, Ukraine has 200 launchers and thousands of missiles for its own Stugna-P system. In 2014 and 2015, the Ukrainian infantry packed far less firepower.
All this should be enough for Ukrainian troops to withstand another military operation designed “to force negotiations” (like the one Moscow executed in 2014 and 2015). Given the risk of military defeat and the high political price (the West has
threatened to treat even a “small war” as harshly as a full-scale invasion), it’s nearly impossible that the local “corps” in the Donbas, acting with Russian support, would attempt another small operation in 2022.
tätä touhua on vaikea järjellä käsitellä, korkean heinän aikaan tuon voisi vielä ymmärtää).