Thread by @Tatarigami_UA

🧵1/17 You don't hear as much about the advancement of regular russian brigades, but you see reports about Wagner advancing in certain areas. While it's true that it's achieved due to extrajudicial executions and irrational losses, the situation is a little bit more complex

2/17 One of the biggest threats posed by Wagner is that they have much more freedom in assaults than regular forces, whose officers must follow rules defined by military regulations, based on the soviet military doctrine. Let's take a closer look at Wagner's tactics.

3/17 Let's imagine a situation where a Ukrainian squad, possibly 9 people, is tasked with securing a tree line in trenches - a quite common occurrence in this war.

4/17 Before the attack, the enemy dispatches a quadcopter to gather intelligence about defenders - the number of people, their armament, trench, and dugout disposition. Based on this information, wagnerites would adjust the number of assault teams, to have a numerical advantage.

5/17 Once targets are determined, the enemy artillery or mortars shell trenches, sometimes for a few days, suppressing the ability of defenders to fight or observe. Covered by this fire, the assault teams start moving closer to the trenches without any significant resistance.

6/17 Wagnerites usually break down into small assault teams consisting of 3-4 people. The first team is usually led by a "scout" who is tasked to observe and locate mined areas ahead. He is followed by two regular riflemen and a machine gunner.

7/17 At the same time, they are usually also covered by the "support" team, armed either with mortar, or automatic grenade launchers such as AGS-17 or AGS-30. Given that not every assault group has one, they can be replaced with a few soldiers armed with RPG-7s instead.

8/17 Once the artillery fire ends, before defenders can take any measures, the support team armed with AGS or RPGs and a machine gun, opens suppressive fire, allowing assault teams to move even closer to trenches. They usually try to engage and outflank the defenders.

9/17 Once close enough to the trenches, the enemy uses hand grenades to cause damage and then assaults the trenches.
I would like to emphasize that this is a generalization, because situations may vary, so treat this just as a general summary.

10/17 Are there ways to fight this? Yes, there are plenty of ways to counter such assaults with minimal losses, however, I would like to focus on what mistakes should be avoided.

11/17 Since I haven't been to the Bakhmut area myself, I spoke to multiple people from a soldier to a lieutenant colonel instead. To exclude personal anecdotes, I included only the most commonly mentioned issues that hinder the ability of units to defend positions effectively:

12/17 Some units are not allowed to determine armament for themselves based on their needs. Their resources are limited based on regulations, papers, and bureaucracy rather than tactical needs. It doesn’t work from the bottom to the top – mostly from the top to the bottom.

13/17 Insufficient freedom to select defensive positions. Positions are selected by officers in a remote command center, rather than by units on the ground. Officers might avoid challenging ridiculous orders from the CC, fearing repercussions, resulting in a lack of initiative.

14/17 Some senior officers remotely micromanage and intervene in the processes on a platoon, company, and battalion level, often worsening the situation significantly.

15/17 Immobile units limited in weapons, tied to specific positions, deprived of maneuver, and having little leeway in actions are much easier targets for wagnerite cannon-fodder assaults, which are designed to fight against such soviet-styled defenses.

16/17 In the areas where these mistakes were avoided, units performed greatly. While the Ukrainian army improved a lot, it's not always possible to turn a colonel or a general with 30 years of soviet-style experience into a NATO-like commander by performing a 3-month course.

17/17 As Bakhmut experience shows, the system needs to be less top-to-bottom but bottom-to-top. The initiative should be encouraged. Centralized, soviet-style management should be replaced with a NATO-style leadership. To win, we need to be flexible, and adapt soon as possible