Russia’s ongoing military reforms seek to build out the long-term capabilities of its armed forces. Russia’s ability to implement these reforms effectively, however, will be bounded by the continued requirements of its war in Ukraine.
In over two years of full-scale fighting in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces have experienced significant shocks and repeated operational failures, which have prevented Russia from achieving its strategic objectives on the battlefield. Russia has retained its maximalist objective of the total capture and subjugation of Ukraine, however, and Russian forces have proven relatively capable of absorbing losses and maintaining constant tactical- to operational-level offensive pressure on Ukrainian defenders.
State of play
At the time of writing in March 2024, Russia’s force generation apparatus was able to deliver enough replacement troops and other service personnel to compensate for the rate of losses in Ukraine at roughly a one-to-one ratio – sufficient, in other words, to maintain Russia’s current style of tactical-level attacks along the entire front line. Ukrainian intelligence officials estimated in December 2023 that Russian crypto-mobilization campaigns were generating about 1,000 to 1,200 new recruits per day (30,000 to 37,200 new recruits per month). Russian estimates are comparable, at around 40,000 new recruits per month. Ukrainian sources suggest that the majority of new recruits are immediately deployed to the front line – both to replenish units that have suffered losses and to staff reserve regiments – although Russian sources claim that recruits undergo between three weeks and six months of training before deployment. Some formations may immediately deploy recruits to the front line, prioritizing filling gaps in the line over investing in higher-quality troops, while others may hold recruits back for training or to prepare them for reserve formations.
The generally low quality of new recruits deployed to the front line without sufficient training will probably continue to prevent Russian forces from achieving operationally significant breakthroughs in the war in 2024.
The generally low quality of new recruits deployed to the front line without sufficient training will probably continue to prevent Russian forces from achieving operationally significant breakthroughs in the war in 2024. Ukrainian intelligence reported in January 2024 that Russia lacked the force capacity to sustain operational reserves capable of conducting simultaneous operations on multiple sectors of the front. This assessment suggests that the pace of Russian force generation is sufficient to allow Russian forces to conduct tactical- to operational-level rotations in Ukraine, but not to re-establish the well-trained, high-quality operational reserves necessary for operational-level undertakings across the front.
Battlefield outcomes are not a simple function of troop numbers, but also reflect troop quality and equipment levels. Yet most new Russian recruits are both of low quality and inadequately equipped. Poor troop quality has contributed to high levels of armoured-vehicle losses (Russian forces lost at least 54 armoured vehicles, including 16 tanks, in one day during an assault near Avdiivka in February 2024, for example); this has consistently frustrated Russian forces’ operational ambitions. Such losses have resulted in ground units being less mechanized and more reliant on attritional, infantry-led frontal assaults.
Ongoing Russian military reforms are in part intended to restore Russian capabilities in Ukraine in the short term. In January 2023, Russia’s then defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, outlined plans for large-scale reforms that included the following: the redivision of the Western Military District (WMD) into separate Moscow and Leningrad military districts; the creation of ‘self-sufficient groupings of troops’ in occupied Ukraine; the formation of a new army corps, three new motorized rifle divisions and two new air assault divisions; and the reorganization of seven motorized rifle brigades into motorized rifle divisions. Russia is already implementing these changes at the military district level, creating new formations at echelons ranging from brigade level to army level, and has already deployed several such formations to Ukraine.
Current Russian military district-level reforms are intended to remedy command and control (C2) challenges by more tightly defining and consolidating C2 headquarters and areas of responsibility (AoRs). On 26 February 2024, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, officially disbanded the WMD and split its strategic AoR between the reformed Moscow and Leningrad military districts. This formalized the initial plans announced by Shoigu a year earlier.
The WMD’s strategic focus had previously stretched between Ukraine’s northeastern border, Belarus, the Baltic states and Finland. The Northern Fleet covered the rest of Russia’s borders with northeastern Finland, Norway and the Arctic. The new Moscow Military District (MMD) will now cover northeastern Ukraine, and is intended to streamline C2 for the war in Ukraine; meanwhile, the Leningrad Military District (LMD) is meant to provide an anti-NATO posture following the accession of both Finland and Sweden to the alliance.
Putin’s February 2024 decree also announced the absorption of the four partially Russian-occupied Ukrainian oblasts into the Southern Military District (SMD), a move likely to tighten C2 links with Russian units in occupied Ukraine. The wording of Shoigu’s original announcement about the formation of ‘self-sufficient groupings of troops’ in occupied Ukraine suggests that Russia seeks to establish a permanent basing and command infrastructure within Ukraine.
Russia is also creating entire new formations below the military district level, many of which have already rapidly deployed to Ukraine to replenish forces following front-line losses. For example, the 25th Combined Arms Army (CAA) was established in the Russian Far East in mid-May 2023. Elements from the 25th CAA – including the 67th Motorized Rifle Division and 164th Motorized Rifle Brigade – have been fighting alongside other unnamed regiment-level formations of the 25th CAA on the border between Kharkiv and Luhansk oblasts since at least September 2023.
The 25th CAA’s rapid deployment to this axis allowed some Central Military District and Airborne Forces (VDV) elements to redeploy laterally to other critical axes to support Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine and offensive preparations near Avdiivka, in Donetsk Oblast. Russia also formed the 18th CAA in occupied Crimea as part of the SMD in around June 2023. Elements of the 18th CAA have been committed in Kherson Oblast since the summer of 2023 in an attempt to prevent Ukrainian forces from establishing an enduring presence in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast.
Russia additionally formed the 104th VDV Division – a fifth VDV division – in 2023. The 104th VDV Division has been deployed in Kherson Oblast, alongside elements of the 18th CAA, likely since the summer of 2023. UK military intelligence reported in December 2023 that the division suffered ‘exceptionally heavy losses’ during its combat debut in Krynky, Kherson Oblast due to the inexperience of its troops. The VDV’s commander, Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, intimated in December 2023 that the April 2023 graduate cohort from the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School had deployed with the 104th VDV Division before the intended autumn deployment date, and that this cohort had likely skipped training to deploy to Krynky.
Prospects for Russian military regeneration and adaptation
The continued requirements of maintaining the war in Ukraine limit the Russian Armed Forces’ scope for fully integrating lessons learned and capitalizing on ongoing reforms. Individual Russian units and formations, up to the army echelon, are undoubtedly learning lessons, innovating and adapting in Ukraine, and the Russian military command is gaining a valuable sample set of lessons observed. It remains to be seen, however, whether the Russian command can internalize, institutionalize and disseminate these lessons throughout the entire force. For now, the West has the opportunity to observe the ways in which Russian forces are either adapting to or being constrained by the contemporary battlefield situation. This could further help Ukraine to exploit gaps and weaknesses both in Russia’s overall project of military regeneration and in the ability of Russian units to adapt on the battlefield. In contrast, a Russian force that had learned, internalized and institutionalized lessons from the conflict in Ukraine would be an even more serious adversary than has been the case to date.
This is a point particularly worth noting by Ukrainian and Western military planners because, as mentioned, systemic weaknesses have not universally translated into Russian combat failures. Military learning and adaptation remain siloed in individual formations and army commands, despite the fact that individual formations have proven resilient and flexible in learning from battlefield mistakes. The 58th CAA, for example, employed doctrinally sound defensive tactics against the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in the summer of 2023. The 58th CAA prepared strong defensive lines in the south, and conducted ‘elastic’ defensive manoeuvres that contributed to the ultimate failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive; this allowed the 58th CAA to regain the initiative and then pursue its own localized offensive in southern Ukraine.
Put another way, the West’s chronic under-resourcing of Ukrainian forces has essentially allowed Russian forces free rein to experiment militarily and gain combat experience on a wide scale against a NATO-supplied adversary. Russian forces are currently able to pursue offensive operations uncontested throughout most of the Ukrainian theatre. Ominously, the lessons that Russian forces have the opportunity to learn under these circumstances might also assist Russia in a potential future large-scale conventional war against NATO.
The West’s chronic under-resourcing of Ukrainian forces has essentially allowed Russian forces free rein to experiment militarily and gain combat experience on a wide scale against a NATO-supplied adversary.
That said, Russia’s ability to exploit this knowledge is hampered by several factors.
First, Russia’s command culture – embodied in the approaches taken both by former defence minister Shoigu and by the chief of the General Staff, Army General Valery Gerasimov – prioritizes pushing forward and attacking everywhere along the entire front line at all times. This is in contrast to concentrating on meaningful penetration of the adversary’s defences, on breaking through into Ukrainian-held terrain, and on exploiting any achieved penetration in one operationally significant area. The current Russian command culture also punishes failure, and in some cases honesty, if either is inconvenient to the perceptions of the military leadership. This encourages the development of a cadre of incompetent but loyal leaders endemically resistant to learning and adapting.
An example of this culture occurred in July 2023, when the Russian high command dismissed the commander of the 58th CAA, Major General Ivan Popov, after Popov had reportedly expressed grievances over the lack of support and rotations for troops defending positions against the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Popov’s firing undermined the Russian command’s ability to internalize valuable lessons learned by the 58th CAA in southern Ukraine and disseminate them among the wider force.
Second, the practice of rapidly committing under-strength and undertrained new formations to Ukraine is inhibiting Russian forces’ ability to take the time to integrate battlefield lessons into wider force reforms. This practice undermines Russia’s investment in rebuilding and restoring existing formations to make them more self-sustaining and capable in the long term, and it limits the utility of reforms in the short term.
Rapid deployment of new formations into existing command AoRs further blurs already complicated C2 distinctions on the ground in Ukraine. It is often unclear where the lines between military-district and group-of-forces command lie, and deploying a new army-level formation into a certain AoR may have tactical- to operational-level impacts on C2 in that AoR. Russian forces have the opportunity to learn and refine sound C2 practices, but have not displayed a propensity to do so thus far.
Finally, current Russian force structure and tactics on the battlefield have eroded distinctions between the size and structure of units of various echelons. This practice means that most front-line and currently forming units essentially operate as under-strength and low-quality motorized rifle units. This has prevented Russian forces from gaining experience of conducting sound conventional combined-arms operations at scale.
Russian forces have, however, displayed a propensity to integrate certain technological capabilities. This has implications for regeneration and adaptation efforts, as it could result in Russian forces being better prepared for future wars. Russian forces’ competent use of electronic warfare (EW) and drones contributed to the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. Russian forces have also been able to innovate in their use of long-range strike packages to exploit gaps in Ukraine’s air defence umbrella, maximizing the effectiveness of Russia’s front-line and rear-area strike campaigns.
Lessons and policy implications for the US and NATO
Russian forces are facing constraints on learning, adaptation and restructuring in the short term because of the way they are fighting in Ukraine. Western military planners would do well to remember that these constraints are not indefinite, however. Russia’s military, if allowed the time and breathing space to do so, could yet take the opportunity to start overcoming its many systemic challenges while exhausting Ukrainian forces and weakening them by attrition.
Russian force generation efforts will continue to deliver sufficient manpower to compensate for the existing rate of losses, provided the Russian economy and defence industrial base can keep up. Shoigu stated in his January 2023 address that Russia plans to increase the size of its military to 1.5 million personnel (from 1.35 million in 2022). In the coming years, force generation and training capacity will likely increase, alongside the planned increase in personnel, irrespective of any additional partial mobilization waves that Putin has the power to call up. The implication is that the Russian army could become much larger and more competent – and thus a more formidable adversary – within the current decade if Russian forces continue to operate unimpeded in Ukraine, and if Ukrainian forces are unable to challenge that growth with the aid of proper Western resourcing.
The wider message for Western policymakers is the importance of observing the Russian military carefully and not underestimating its capacity to learn and adapt. The longer Russian forces can hold the initiative uncontested in Ukraine, the better they can rebuild their forces and learn. Put another way, Ukraine perhaps is now fighting a smaller-scale version of the war that Russia may be preparing to fight against NATO within the next 10 years. This understanding needs to fundamentally shape NATO and Western planning and policy in the coming decade.
