Russia's military Achilles' Heel: Expert reveals mistakes - and why things are going better now
Created: 06/25/2022, 16:40
A destroyed Russian tank stands in a field near the town of Dmytrivka.
Some tanks simply stopped due to lack of fuel (archive photo, April 13).
© picture alliance/dpa/Ukrinform |
At the beginning of the Ukraine war, Russia had logistical problems.
From the point of view of a military expert, Putin now apparently has the supply of his troops in the battle for the Donbass under control.
Donbass - The Ukraine war has been going on for over 100 days.
According to military experts, the Achilles heel of the Russian army at the beginning of the aggressive war was logistics.
But in the fighting in the Donbass, Russia now seems to have the problem under control.
Ukraine War: Logistics Crucial Factor in Warfare
"Amateurs talk about strategy, professionals about logistics," said US General Omar Bradley.
Logistics is a crucial factor in warfare - and Russia apparently had problems with this at the beginning of the war.
A US military expert referred to the lack of Russian logistics as early as April.
Trent Telenko, a former quality inspector at the US Defense Contracts Agency, told
CNN
after analyzing photos that Russia had been neglecting its trucks.
Telenko considers the truck to be extremely important in warfare, to bring supplies to the front - whether it's food or ammunition and rockets.
Ben Barry of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London agrees that Russia underestimated the importance of logistics at the start of the war.
"It's clear that when the attack began, Russia didn't have the logistics under control -- and Ukrainian troops deliberately exploited this vulnerability," Barry told
Business Insider
.
According to the expert, Putin has set the number of combat troops far too high, referring to the so-called “tooth to tail ratio”, which is the ratio of combat troops (tooth) to supporting troops (tail). German: tail) indicates.
The support area tends to become even more important in modern warfare as weapons become more complex and high-maintenance,
Business Insider
reports.
The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope
View photo gallery
Ukraine war: Why Russia seems to have its logistics problem in the Donbass under control
At the beginning of the war, Vladimir Putin made slower progress than originally planned.
The logistics problem was apparently one of the reasons for this, in some cases Russian tanks were reportedly left without fuel.
In contrast to Telenko, who saw the problem with the Russian trucks, the security expert Torben Schütz from the Bundeswehr University considers the railway network to be a decisive factor.
Accordingly, Russia brought food, ammunition and other supplies to the war zone mainly via the railway tracks.
However, as the troops advanced further and the distances to the train stations increased, they ran out of supplies in places.
Ukraine quickly cut key rail routes from Russia to cut off supply routes.
Russia apparently switched to the rail network of its ally Belarus.
Then, in March, Putin shifted the main goal of his aggressive war to the "liberation" of the Donbass.
In the Donbass region, the rail network is more dense, Torben Schütz told
Business Insider
raised concerns.
"In addition, the Russian troops are fighting in an area that is significantly smaller than at the beginning of the war, which makes it easier to organize supplies," the expert continued.
The artillery, with which Russia mainly fights in the Donbass, often needs replenishment in the form of ammunition.
In the current fighting in the Donbass, the situation is therefore more advantageous for Russia, according to Schütz.
In fact, Russia recently recorded territorial gains in the Donbass.
Sieverodonetsk and the neighboring city of Lysychansk were long the last places in the Luhansk region of Donbass to resist Russia.
On Friday (June 24) it became known that Ukraine was giving up its week-long struggle for the strategically important city of Sievarodonetsk.
However, another problem in Russia does not seem to have been solved yet: corruption in the Russian army.
"Corruption at the operational level impedes Russian logistics, resulting in soldiers being poorly supplied and equipped," said Polina Belyafova of Tufts University of International Relations.
But not only Russia has weak points.
The Suwalki Gap near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is considered to be NATO's Achilles' heel.
