Thread by @WarintheFuture

In the wake of the Ukrainian victory in western #Kherson, and in the midst of Russia’s ongoing terror bombing campaign against Ukrainian civil infrastructure, we should look at the man in charge of Russia's campaign. A thread on General #Surovikin. 1/25 🧵

2/ CAVEAT: This thread is NOT about admiring an enemy military commander who has previously demonstrated brutality towards Syrian civilians, his own soldiers, and now against the Ukrainians. It is designed to provide insights into how to defeat him. rferl.org/a/russia-bruta…

3/ Much of the reporting about the Russians in #Ukraine focusses on ‘the Russians’ as some amorphous mass. The reality is, even in barely adequate military institutions, there is organization, control, and command from the top. Military commanders matter.

4/ In designing their future operations, Ukrainian military leaders and planners will not just be looking at Russian military capabilities and dispositions. They will be assessing how a different command philosophy from Surovikin might impact future Ukrainian operations.

5/ As such, we should understand the enemy commander. It is how we might understand his incentives and motivations, anticipate his strategy and plans. Defeat mechanisms can then be built to prevent Russian military successes in Ukraine. mca-marines.org/wp-content/upl…

6/ In the wake of Ukraine’s attack on the Kerch Bridge, Army General Sergey Surovikin was appointed as the overall Russian commander for the campaign in Ukraine. His appointment was welcomed by Russian nationalist groups, and praised by Yevgeniy Prigozhin. understandingwar.org/backgrounder/r…

7/ Surovikin commands an army which is exhausted, has morale issues & has been constantly attritted in the past 9 months. Over winter, he will be defending ground, and do what he can preserve his force, reconstitute battered units & construct resilient logistics network.

8/ But, what kind of considerations might shape his forward planning, based on what we have seen of him so far?

9/ First, he will seek better alignment between Putin’s political objectives & the military capacity of Russia’s armed forces. These 2 things have been poorly aligned since the beginning of the war; this misalignment has played a big role in the poor performance of the Russians.

10/ Putin’s political objectives in February this year were far larger than the small, overly disaggregated Russian ground and air forces were capable of achieving. The concentration of combat power in the Donbas mid-2022 was a demonstration the Russians understood this.

11/ But we are seeing a kind of ‘meeting in the middle’ between politics and the military. Politically, Russia is mobilising people and industry to provide a greater military capacity for Ukrainian military operations.

12/ Militarily, Surovikin has tailored operations in the short term, including the Kherson withdrawal, to account for his current force size and weaknesses. However, moving forward, he will be expected to conduct offensive operations with his 'enhanced' military capability.

13/ A second consideration of Surovikin’s moving forward is the identification and development of asymmetries he can leverage against the Ukrainians. With his ongoing missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, Surovikin has developed an asymmetric advantage over #Ukraine.

14/ Lawrence Freedman has noted that “the Ukrainians cannot do the same against the Russians in terms of targeting infrastructure. The Ukrainians are winning on the battlefield, but they cannot hit back against the Russians on that strategic level.” salon.com/2022/11/21/put…

15/ Where else might Surovikin look for asymmetries? One area is air operations. This is an understudied part of the war that is covered in this excellent @RUSI_org report. static.rusi.org/SR-Russian-Air…

16/ It notes: “thanks to its failure to destroy Ukraine’s mobile SAM systems, Russia remains unable to effectively employ potentially heavy & efficient aerial firepower of its fixed-wing bomber & multi-role fighters to bombard Ukrainian strategic targets & frontline positions.”

17/ And: “if Ukrainian SAMs are not resupplied with ammunition, and ultimately augmented and replaced with Western equivalents over time, the VKS will regain the ability to pose a major threat.” The development of air superiority may be an area of focus for Surovikin.

18/ Third, he may use a large, mobilised force to generate concentrations of troops for tactical or operational breakthroughs in 2023. This won't be easy. Individual training is poor; it is a bad foundation for the more difficult unit collective training.fortune.com/2022/10/26/rus…

19/ With an extensive, meshed sensor network, the Ukrainians have the ability to detect and attack such concentrations at long range. Therefore, the importance of developing a decisive advantage in the air, to degrade Ukrainian long-range strike, is brought to the fore.

20/ But, with the possibility of more mobilisations and incentives for increased industrial output from the Russians, a shift from the Russian piecemeal attacks we have seen so far may be an option that Surovikin considers - but not in the short term.

21/ A final area of change for Surovikin may be command and control (C2). He will want to improve the integration of combined arms on the ground, as well as air-land integration. These have been weaknesses for the Russians. But will not be easy to fix.

22/ The reason for this is another key part of C2: #leadership. Russia has lost many leaders, from junior to quite senior in this war. Surovikin is sure to be aware of this. He will want to ensure his senior leaders are capable of leading effectively for the campaigns of 2023.

23/ We may see more senior Russian military leaders replaced. At the same time, Surovikin is sure to be placing demands on the Russian force generation system for junior leaders. This will be hard given the challenges facing their training system.

https://twitter.com/SamBendett/status/1594005114389516290

24/ Despite Surovikin’s brutal background, it is prudent that we understand him better & not underestimate the impact his leadership might have on Russia’s operations. Ukrainian success in 2023 will be partially determined by their ability to out-think the Russian commander. End.

25/ Thank you to those who images, and work, were used in this thread: @CNN @RFERL @JapanTimes @RUSI_org @Forbes @UAWeapons @MassDara @DefenceU @SamBendett @LawDavF