Ukraine 8
"The only thing that now fills up are the trenches and graves."
Irrespective of the hype in The New York Times, the recently leaked, secret American documents about the war in Ukraine are little more than an elucidation of the obvious. More enlightening and interesting is the March 16, 2023, white paper “Observations and Recommendations for Ukraine Armed Forces,” written by retired U.S. Special Forces officer Paul Schneider. This paper echoes many of the points made by Mozart Group founder Andy Milburn in his October 8, 2022, Sour Milk interview.
In addition to frank criticism, Schneider also offers what he believes to be “the key to unlocking offensive operations” It is not more HIMARS systems, M-1 tanks or F-16s. Instead, it is basic training, reliable communications, and better Ukrainian military leadership:
“In the fight for Ukraine, most pundits focus on the missteps of the Russian Army or the tenacity of the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) or the huge influx of Western aid such as tanks and artillery systems. The general conclusion is that Ukrainian toughness and Russian ineptitude have led to the Ukrainian successes on the battlefield coupled with Western support. While all of these have contributed to the current situation on the ground today, it will not ensure Ukrainian victory. The most likely long-term scenario in this author’s opinion, is a hardening of the battle lines with little forward progress for Ukraine or Russia for the foreseeable future.”
Paul Schneider is uniquely qualified to offer these blunt assessments. He retired from Special Forces in July 2021 and shifted his attention to humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan. After helping evacuate hundreds of Afghani and U.S. citizens before, during, and after America’s pell-mell pullout (“Vae Victis: Woe to the Conquered in Afghanistan”), Schneider migrated to Ukraine in 2022. His observations and recommendations are based on nine months of training various branches of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Army, Special Operations Forces, National Guard, Territorial Defense Forces, Marines, and the Border Guards) and the senior instructors from the nation’s military academies. In 2023, he cofounded the Ukraine Defense Support Group.
Given all of the “misinformation” about the war in Ukraine and the likelihood that NATO and the United States will eventually get dragged even deeper and more directly into this open-ended conflict, I asked Paul Schneider if I could publish his paper. When I offered him a pseudonym or the cloak of anonymity, he refused it and said, “There are too many dubious anonymous sources these days. It is important that I take ownership of my words.”
Below is “Observations and Recommendations for Ukraine Armed Forces,” unedited and in its entirety.
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Observations and recommendations for Ukraine Armed Forces to defeat Russia today and prevent Russia’s return in the future.
Prepared by Paul Schneider
16 March 2023
In the fight for Ukraine, most pundits focus on the missteps of the Russian Army or the tenacity of the Ukrainian people and Armed Forces. The news headlines are dominated by which Western country is sending what type of aid such as tanks and artillery systems. The general conclusion would be that Ukrainian toughness and Russian ineptitude has led to the Ukrainian successes on the battlefield coupled with Western support. While all of these have led to the current situation on the ground today, it will not ensure a Ukrainian victory. The most likely long-term scenario in this author’s opinion, is a hardening of the battle lines with little forward progress for Ukraine or Russia for the foreseeable future. Both sides launch major offensives on a regular basis but the front lines shift less and less and the only thing that changes dramatically is the number of casualties. Ukraine was andis still able to hold the line through extreme measures like raising the age of military service to 60+ and mobilizing the support of the international community, but that support has dramatically decreased recently. As the money and support stops flooding in the only thing that now fills up are the trenches and graves. In order for Ukraine to not only keep Russia at bay, but to decisively defeat them without losing generations of Ukrainians, they need to do something different.
The two keys to the Ukrainian successes on the battlefield, valiantly stopping one of the largest militaries in the worlds with just a few defenders, are the will of the people and international logistics support. Both of these factors have an expiration date which makes time on the Russian’s side. Popular and material support from the West and especially the U.S. government has also waned significantly. The flood of support is now just a trickle with many volunteer and non-governmental organizations shutting down operations or reducing staff levels at a time when Ukraine needs help the most if they hope to regain occupied territories. Many of the commanders and trainers we engage with see this sober reality setting in. With this new reality, how can Ukraine change the paradigm in their favor again? Rapid combined arms planning and systematic training efforts from the brigade to the individual soldier level across the entire Ukrainian Armed Forces is the quickest and cheapest solution to breaking this paradigm.
Current Operations & Observations:
The following observations and recommendations are based on nine months of training with all services of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to include the Army, Special Operations Forces, National Guard, Territorial Defense Forces, Naval Infantry (Marines), and the Border Guards Services. For the purposes of this report, “UAF”will include all armed fighting formations that includes the Army, Border Guards Service, National Guard, Naval Infantry (Marines), Special Operations Forces, andTerritorial Defense (several combat police force units are fighting as well):
Lack of Combined Arms Operations
The UAF do not conduct consistent combined arms operations. Combined arms operations are defined as,
“the appropriate combination of infantry, mobile protected firepower, offensive and defensive fires, engineers, Army aviation, and joint capabilities. It is the application of these combinations in unified action that allows us to defeat enemy ground forces; to seize, occupy, and defend land areas…By synchronizing combined arms and applying them simultaneously, commanders can achieve a greater effect than if each element was used separately or sequentially.”
https://www.benning.army.mil/mssp/Combined%20Arms%20Operations/
The lack of combined, synchronized operations, results in greater losses of life and equipment as well as failed operations. Military aid such as tanks are used as mobile artillery and not in combined operations with infantry. The artillery systems such as the 155mm M777 howitzer are typically used at maximum range to protect them from loss or capture. This results in burned out barrels and artillery fires not being synchronized with maneuver elements. The husbanding of resources such as artillery and tanks are a symptom of an unreliable supply system and minimal resources. The result is that infantry will watch as the enemy maneuvers and stages in front of their defensive positions just outside of effective artillery range. Worse, when the Ukrainian soldiers conduct assaults, they quickly move out of range of the protection and fire support of accurate and timely fires support. The lack of communications amplifies this issue as artillery fires are not synchronized with maneuver. They are treated as separate units with separate missions. Conducting a breach with fire support is a complicated and dangerous mission with the breaching element expected to almost always sustain high casualty rates. Without fire support, the results are reminiscent of World War I trench assaults. Most tactical units also do not talk directly to supporting artillery which results in a significant delay in call for fire missions. Ukrainian units cannot effectively attrit, echelon fires, or engage high value targets and high priority targets such as thermobaric weapons and breaching equipment as Russian units conduct breaches. This allows the Russian military to maintain more maneuver options or move with relative impunity as it can take hours for an artillery battery to process a fire mission.
When it comes to brigade and battalion operations,they are mainly independent of adjacent unit missions which precludes combined effects, so operations are piecemeal and disjointed and the separate missions are not supporting each other. Adjacent unit coordination is rare and ad hoc. Unit commanders are concerned with collaborators within their units and are hesitant to provide locations and mission information to other units. During recent discussions with Ukrainian officers, they said the risk of collaborators is less a problem now than it was at the beginning of the war, but the concerns still exist. The missions of lower-level units are also not “nested” under a higher-level mission. This lack of synchronization of efforts is primarily a mission command and training issue, but remedying that problem requires a careful combined and synchronized approach to equipping, training, and conducting operations. To implement these systematic changes requires time, the most limited resource, because of changes to doctrine, law, and training throughout the entire UAF. The demands of the front to hold the battle lines means that units have very little time to prepare. As a result, each subsequent unit that moves forward has less and less training and ability to conduct offensive and defensive actions, resulting in higher casualty and unit personnel turnover. This also means there is virtually no time to train even basic soldier skills before they are sent to fill the trenches at the front, much less implement significant changes that are required to do combined arms. The current strategy tries to solve these problems, but is not uniformly implemented and not done at the appropriate levels to create effective results. Armies throughout time have sought cutting edge technologicalsolutions and it is the same in Ukraine. While expensive weapons systems such as HIMARS, modern tanks, and more advanced artillery systems do make a difference on the battlefield, those on their own will not be enough to drastically change results on the battlefield. It is a complex problem and to conduct combined arms operations requires a combined approach to solve, but where to start?
Mission Command
Mission Command is,
“The conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based upon mission-type orders. Mission Command exploits the human element…emphasizing trust, force of will, initiative, judgement, and creativity. Successful Mission Command demands that subordinate leaders at all echelons exercise disciplined initiative and act aggressively and independently to accomplish the mission. They focus their orders on the purpose of the operation rather than on the details of how to perform assigned tasks. Essential to Mission Command is the thorough understanding of the Commander’s intent at every level of command and a command climate of mutual trust and understanding.” (JP 1-0, “Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States,” U.S. Department of Defense)
The current philosophy for training is based on the legacy Soviet model with large scale training (usually only at the battalion-level and below) orchestrated and choreographed by the brigade or battalion with no personal initiative from subordinate commanders allowed. This is written in their law. It is a completely commander centric system with no delegation of authority in training, planning, and especially operations. It stems from the philosophy that the commander is responsible for everything, and that responsibility cannot be delegated or placed at lower levels. In militaries with traditions of mission command, that same overall responsibility of the commander is understood, but it is also implied that for a unit to operate effectively, leaders must trust their subordinates to conduct tasks without their constantpresence or guidance. Micromanagement does not usually work well in rapidly changing environments and is seen as a negative trait in the U.S./UK militaries. In Ukraine, this legacy model translates to cases where we have seen field grade commanders loading their soldiers’ magazines at the range and another case in combat where a company commander was manning a mortar on the front. The ability to delegate authority and responsibility of non-essential tasks to other officers or non-commissioned officers is virtually non-existent and is not supported in their legal system.
The UAF holds most decision-making at more senior levels. During training sessions with field grade officers, we are constantly asked what the punishment is for failure during missions or making decisions that end up having bad results. When we teach the U.S./NATO process for the planning and conduct of missions for the tactical and operational level using Troop Leading Procedures (TLPs) or the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) we are also repeatedly asked at each step, “who is allowed to make this decision?” They are floored that battalion battle captains have the authority to make decisions, or a battalion executive officer or S3 operations officer give orders on behalf of the battalion commander. In their system, operational failure could result in prison time, or at least the threat of it. The battalion and lower-level commanders are always incredibly busy as they are legally obligated to approve every aspect of every mission. Because of this, commanders constantly have a capacity issue. This manifests itself especially during the planning process as they tend to conduct sequential and separate orders for each phase of an operation. A battalion is the typical maneuver element, and the battalion commander makes one plan for the entire battalion and for each company commander. The company commander’s job is to then execute the battalion commander’s plan to the letter. Deliberate or hasty planning below the battalion level is virtually non-existent. If a company commander exercises personal initiative, for example picking a better defensive position or even pursuing a withdrawing enemy, they could face punishment. This specter of punishment results in units task organized by specific roles and without the authority to conduct varied missions. In dialogue with senior field grade officers, we inquired if any officers had gone to prison for failed missions or failure to follow orders since 2022 and they stated they had not personally heard of such cases recently. Regardless, the threat of severe punishment is very real to them and in practice most commanders will adhere to the laws even at the cost of losing their entire unit.
The Ukrainian military at the battalion level usually task organizes their units as either “defense” and “assault” units. Units do not do both missions except in rare circumstances. Commanders and their often limited staffs plan operations in a segmented way and rarely in a combined arms maneuver phased approach. U.S. battalion operations typically include a phase on planning, movement, actions on the objective, and consolidation/reorganization with a possible follow-on mission in the event of operational success or harsh resistance. In Ukraine the movement phase is a separate operation that is planned, approved, and conducted. Then setting in a defense is planned, approved, and conducted. The UAF also do not have follow on “Be Prepared To” or “On Order” missions. They must await orders that are specific to their unit type and their operations are planned separately from supporting units. This approach to planning results in inefficient time usage, lost initiative, and operations that are not synchronized for maximum effects. For example, artillery units must have a separate planned and approved plan for each phase. This approach to planning delays the speed of operations significantly and neutralizes their ability to support fast developing operations. Typically, the battalion must request fires support through the brigade as they are not pre-allocated fires. The company or most forward elements also do not communicate or have direct communication with any of their supporting artillery units as they just have to conduct the mission that is planned for them. Any changes in the operational environment can make rapid adjustments challenging if not impossible. Lack of communications, combined with the artillery emplacement issues previously discussed, usually leaves the infantry units with only a battalion level 120mm mortar section with precious fewrounds as their only immediate fire support.
In the UAF, generally changing from the defense to the offense without an additional order is also not allowed. It is not to say that it never happens, but that is the mentality. This practice prevents timely exploitation or pursuit and allows Russian forces time to withdraw, build hasty defenses, and then dig in before a Ukrainian assault unit and their artillery support unit can build a plan, brief it, get it approved, and conduct the mission. The “assault” unit then has to conduct a Forward Passage of Lines through the defense unit, usually under fire, as they launch their attack. This delay makes every attack essentially a breaching operation with fratricide a constant threat given the notable lack of communication capabilities and adjacent unit coordination. The solution though is relatively simple and does not require expensive equipment, just changes to mission command systems.
Over the past nine months having trained various units from the squad up to battalion level and we have seen change happening throughout the Ukrainian officer corps. Many field grade and company grade officers realize that they must adapt legacy war fighting methods, but this takes time and more importantly senior officer and government support to implement systemic change. The officers who have experienced combat at the front understand the need, but they of course lack the rank and legal support to make necessary changes and prevent significant loss of life. It might seem simple enough to just change their existing planning processes to a NATO model based on MDMP, but there are other daunting challenges to conducting centralized planning and decentralized operations as U.S. doctrine dictates. Ukraine does nothave dedicated trained staff at the battalion level or a dedicated non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps at virtually any level.
In both the U.S. and Ukrainian militaries, lieutenants are expected to lead their formations after just a few months of training, but that is where the similarities end. A U.S. platoon leader has a senior NCO, the platoon sergeant, who at least a decade of experience and is charged with advising and supporting the lieutenant. In Ukraine, platoon leaders do not have anything like an experienced platoon sergeant. It is the sole responsibility of a platoon leader straight out of their service academy to lead and train his platoon with sometimes less than a month to train their subordinates before they are mobilized. The lack of experienced, subordinate leaders forces platoon leaders to have to micromanage all their subordinates who in turn must wait on them to provide all approved guidance. Without effective non-commissioned officers or delegation of authority, Mission Command at any level is almost impossible to do.
Compounding this issue is a lack of common equipment, training centers, staff, academies, and training cycles across the services. Rarely do they exchange instructors or, for example, have National Guard units train at an Army center. When asked if we could bring some Territorial Defense soldiers to train on a National Guard base, we were told that it was not possible because they were not National Guard. To receive standard NATO and U.S. combined arms TLPs and MDMP training they therefore had to reach out to volunteer organizations orhope for the rare opportunity to travel to Europe to train with NATO forces. Unfortunately, relying on entities outside of the Ukraine for training is not a long-term solution.
There are several volunteer organizations training the UAF but most focus on just basic soldier skills at the company or platoon level and their efforts are very disjointed, haphazard, and the standardization and effectiveness of instruction varies significantly. NATO is also training select units and soldiers outside of Ukraine in limited quantities. This is most likely a political decision due to concerns over NATO “boots on the ground” in the conflict zone. While this training can be effective and necessary for certain specialty skills such as tank crews and HIMARS teams, it takes units and soldiers away for weeks if not months at a time. Given Ukrainian manning shortages, many units cannot afford to send all their soldiers at one time or choose to send their best soldiers in hopes they can come back and teach the rest of their formations. They also rarely send senior officers who are the decision makers. This approach makes the best NATO efforts to provide uniform instruction to whole units nearly impossible.
Units we have trained that have also received training outside of Ukraine inform us that the training they received is not always consistent nor is specifically tailored to the unique legal and tactical issues facing UAF. Complex planning systems like MDMP are also challenging if not impossible given that UAF units usually have very limited staff and are fortunate if they have 24 hours to plan an operation. Also, Ukrainian staffs at every level are significantly smaller than NATO staffs. A well-staffed infantry battalion will have a commander, chief of staff/executive officer, a logistics officer, possibly an intelligence officer who sometimes is also the reconnaissance company commander, and maybe anoperations/plans officer. Many executive officers perform the duties of a chief of staff, executive officer, personnel officer, and operations/plans officer. Already mentioned in this paper are the Ukrainian rules of conducting sequential planning. Finally, the UAF are limited in their enablers and equipment. Additional assets that a NATO infantry battalion takes for granted such as dedicated supporting fires, engineers, a forward support company and information, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets are rarely available and vary from unit to unit and mission to mission. When units experience heavy losses,they also receive untrained replacements that will not understand the new systems or equipment. So, what is the solution?
The answer is to incorporate more centralized and standardized training programs across all the services and schools in Ukraine. The UAF need to implement legal changes to allow for subordinate commanders to execute disciplined initiative and develop NCOs. Those are just the mission command issues. To allow mission command changes to happen, the UAF will need to address communications and sustainment limitations.
Communications
It is common during most post military exercise after action reviews to highlight communications issues. The communications systems that enable effective mission command are challenging to master, but what if you do not have communications? Russian jamming and directional finding capabilities prevent secure communications between units. Most of the units have centrally issued Falcon III Harris 152 and Motorola radios with secure communications, but those are almost always jammed and there are not enough to issue below the company level. Because of those issues, their primary communications are the WhatsApp and Signal smartphone applications. These apps generally work until the cellular LTE networksare disrupted then communications between units are drastically reduced, delayed, or non-existent. Satellite communications options exist, but they are relatively expensive and out of the financial reach of most units to provide below the battalion level. Starlink, Iridium, and other satellite service and phone providers offer a solution but the UAF does not have them in sufficient numbers to allow coordinated maneuver at the operational or tactical level.
This amalgamation of unreliable and varied communications systems leads to the inability to conduct synchronized maneuver. No direct link exists between front-line units and artillery/air support. The UAF also do not have specifically trained forward observers to control and direct fires at the battalion, company, or platoon level. This lack of expertise combined with artillery units having to have separate approved plans are a primary reason that fire support is not effective. It is not unheard of for a unit to send a soldier, known as a “runner” to find the brigade artillery fires cell then relay the target information and hope the target is still there. A commander on the front told us that a TOS-1 Thermobaric Rocket Launcher, an extremely high value target, would drive in front of his position every day, along the same route. He tried for several days to get a fire mission coordinated to destroy it and when the fire mission finally happened, they could not adjust the rounds to hit the high priority piece of equipment.
Without a complete overhaul of their communications architecture this problem will persist and prevent combined arms operations or ability to direct fires. There also has to be common standards for reporting on the various systems. Reports such as medical evacuation, fire missions, and emergency resupply, among others are integral to enabling combined operations and it is imperative that the person on the receiving end of a report like a 9-Line Medical Evacuation knows the format. The solution now needs to include adaptations to mission command, training, and communications.
Sustainment
The UAF does not have standardized methods of acquiring materials and employing sustainment/logistics. Also, a significant amount of their equipment and ammunition are not standardized and result in significant changes in capabilities and ability to conduct operations. For example, issued Croatian, Italian, Bulgarian and other artillery/mortars ammunition have varying degrees of ballistic capabilities. These capabilities are annotated on firing tables designed for a specific ammo and charges paired with a specific artillery/mortar system, but often these munitions are being used in different non-standard systems and the tables are not accurate. This directly affects the range and accuracy of fires in support of maneuver operations. Of critical importance is also a notable lack of smoke rounds. Smoke for artillery, mortars, and grenades is crucial to support breaching operations. Most units report being issued no smoke rounds and doctrinally the Soviet battalion 120mm mortar battery’s basic load is 20 smoke rounds. This only provides a few minutes of obscuration for breaching elements. Breaches through Russian obstacle belts can often take hours, especially without coordinated artillery fires. In practice most units do not have any organic abilities to mask their movement while conducting these dangerous operations.
Another common logistics problem is units receiving new equipment as they are enroute to the front. This means they usually have limited to no experience on those new pieces of equipment and weapons systems prior to combat. Donated Western ammunition and equipment arriving in Ukraine are also picked over repeatedly until they finally get to a front-line unit. We have seen warehouses full of foreign aid, like an arms room full of new Harris radios, just sitting on bases far from the front. How is this possible? The answer is a lack of a centralized sustainment system (including centralized inventory control), and a lack of trained logistics personnel and support to field equipment to units.
This is further complicated by the fact that most battalion and below “supply” officers are also appointed and not school trained. Sustainment is also not a part of the plan because when they go on operations all they have for that operation is what they can take with them. There is no resupply. This also further limits a unit’s role to either defensive or offensive. If a unit is conducting a defense, they do not have enough allocated sustainment or resupply options to allow them to transition to offensive operations from their forward positions. The most critical part of successful combined arms operations is rapid resupply to allow continued offensive operations. This facet is currently not feasible with their organic capabilities.
For organic sustainment capabilities supply officers might have an assistant and some vehicles, but everything is based on personal initiative. There is no uniformity with personnel, equipment, or training across their logistics system. This issue also leads to significant preventable loss of life. With some rare exceptions, no units at any level have organic casualty or medical evacuation capability. The ability or notable lack of ability to conduct casualty evacuation is also a critical issue in terms of morale. Because almost all units lack organic medical transportation equipment for evacuation, they rely on ad hoc “stabilization points” or casualty collection points(CCPs) usually manned by a mix of military medics and foreign volunteers. Unfortunately, these are often several kilometers away from the front. Seasoned medics will say that there are just three types of patients they see: 1)those that died from certain unpreventable death; 2) ones that died from a preventable cause of death such as massive blood loss; and 3) those that would survive with minimal to no immediate medical care. Typically, only the third type consistently makes it out of the CCPs alive. The estimates from multiple CCPs are that 70% of the patients they treat have died from a preventable cause of death. Basic medical care such as an improperly applied tourniquets or reaching definitive care (a hospital) in less than four hours’ time are the main causes of death. Most soldiers carry tourniquets and individual first aid kits at this point in the conflict, which indicates this problem is a logistics and training issue.
Assault units’ commanders are often laden with casualties (because of lack of coordinated fire support and operations) and lose much of their assaulting or supportforces to move casualties’ kilometers from the front lines or they simply cannot treat or evacuate their wounded for several hours or days. Units become combat ineffective quickly and so there is a constant rotation of inexperienced, hastily deployed soldiers who learn their lessons in combat instead of training. This lack of organic sustainment personnel and equipment also prevents push or pull logistics below the battalion level, and units cannot properly prepare due to lack of engineering supplies and support.
The UAF has significant issues with maintenance as well. Ukraine does not have a system that provides consistent, reliable maintenance and parts at the company, battalion, brigade, and depot level. Equipment that Ukraine purchased and acquired before the war started did not receive regular maintenance and the massive influx of equipment from around the world has made maintenance almost impossible. The skill of maintainers is based on personal aptitude and less on school-trained mechanics. All the services have maintenance courses, but that does not translate into a ready pool of mechanics. This attitude towards maintenance translates into how armor, mechanized vehicles, and artillery are used in combat. As previously mentioned, units protect these assets and use tanks as artillery rather than in combined arms operations with infantry. Armored personnel carriers with mounted crew served weapons will transport soldiers to the front and promptly make them dismount when they come under fire or are near the front. This attitude also affects their fires support. Many of the barrels of the 155mm howitzers provided by the West have been completely shot out due to using them at max range (using max powder charges) to keep them out of range of counterbattery fires. The fear of potential loss of equipment that they cannot easilyreplace stymies the conduct of combined arms warfareand limits the use of organic vehicles for evacuation of casualties. The mentality and practice of using what you have when you go into combat will have to change if Ukraine wants to win. This problem is a mission command, training, communications, and sustainment issue.
How to fix the problems?
The breadth of these problems may seem insurmountable and may appear to require years of training, procurement, and an unlimited budget to fix, but that is not the case. The solutions to the observations above, except a robust sustainment system, are not expensive. They do however require a reallocation of currently available resources and a change of mentality which can be a harder to solve problem than greater financial expenditure.
The UAF need a rapid, standardized training programto meet Ukraine’s immediate needs followed by a more sustainable long-term approach. Training that is centrally planned, that is standardized among the services and then implemented with proven training methodologies will provide a feasible and rapid solution. By focusing on a Train The Trainer (T3) methodology this can be done in less than a month per brigade. To account for the short term lack of support occupational specialties such as logistics, medical and maintenance, a general reorganization of available soldiers (even if not specifically skill-trained) based on the self-sustaining concept similar to the U.S. Infantry Brigade Combat Team may be necessary. Finally using integrated mission planning processes such as heavily modified MDMP and TLPs will allow a faster operational tempo and reduce preventable deaths. All the training, reorganization, and planning procedures will need to be adapted to account for severe time constraints, equipment, legal and delegation of command issues in order to allow Ukraine to effectively go on the offensive almost immediately until they can address the other outlined issues adequately.
Implementation of the training changes would require a collective approach to training as well. It must be taught to the whole maneuver brigade or battalion down to the squad level. All echelons of command must receive training based on the same philosophy of mission command and combined arms operations. If the senior leadership chooses not to operate or use these systems at their level this will only amplify existing communications and mission command issues. Brigades and battalions can undergo this type of training in a 5-10 day heavily modified MDMP/TLPs system for senior and junior leaders and a 15–30-day company and below soldiers’ course withan evaluation of the entire unit during a planning or field exercise at the end. NCO/subordinate development should be an integral part of this training since it is a cornerstone of decentralized execution that is required in combined arms. This training cycle is also short enough to meet current personnel demand and allows enough flexibility to make rapid adjustments to the program of instruction based on changes on the battlefield and nuances between units. It is also critical that all units should start training with the equipment they will take into combat if at all possible.
A program like this proposal is possible right now using a combination of foreign and Ukrainian instructors with recent combat and school house experience. Choosing the right instructors is challenging. After nine months of experience training the UAF with instructors of varying backgrounds and nationalities, only instructors who are flexible and open to modifying the way they were trained to the realities in Ukraine are key. It is also important that instructors should be familiar with the donated equipment and with sufficient experience to adapt and tailor planning methodologies like MDMP and TLPs to the specific equipment and capabilities utilized by the Ukraine Armed Forces.
The maneuver focused T3 and adapted instruction would involve the following components conducted simultaneously:
-5 to10-day brigade/battalion & staff operations & planning course. This course will focus on synchronization of the warfighting functions with a focus on mission command with highly modified MDMP, communications, and integration of fires and sustainment functions in the current environment. This will provide principles and application on how to conduct offensive and defensive operations with the specific personnel and equipment that each battalionactually has at the time of instruction. The course would also focus on how to properly task organize a battalion staff, subordinate units, enablers, and any niche skills.
-10-day company/platoon commander course. This course will focus on company TLPs to conduct offensive and defensive operations in both rural and urban terrain. Additionally, they will learn how to conduct call for fire, weapons employment, basic sustainment/logistics planning.
-15-day individual soldier training for soldiers. Basic soldier skills such as weapons employment, combat shooting, individual movement techniques, battle drills, urban operations, small unit tactics, and special emphasis on basic medical skills. Additional focus will be placed on NCO duties and responsibilities at the platoon/squad level to enable disciplined initiative. Specialty skill training for engineers, UAS operators, artillery forward observers, and medics will also be required.
With all 5-15-day instructional periods complete, the training will culminate with a 3-day brigade or battalion exercise to validate unit readiness. This collective training phase will evaluate their ability to conduct parallel and synchronized planning, supply operations, movement, defensive operations, planning in the defense, breaching, and attacking. Once complete, the units will have time to refine or fix any issues before they are sent to the front.
To conduct combined arms operations, the organization of units would also have to change to something similar to a U.S. Army’s Brigade Combat Team (BCT) and battalion self-sustaining model which gives each battalion a Forward Support Company (FSC) that directly supports a battalion based on that specific battalion’s mission and equipment. A typical FSC has organic support to provide water, food, fuel, ammo, and another critical capability, maintenance support. In addition to the FSC, a U.S. battalion model also includes a dedicated medical section that provides rapid evacuation of casualties allowing maneuver elements to apply maximum combat power and move forward unencumbered by casualties.
The training should also place special emphasis on sustainment and medical systems. These systems take longer to fix but establishing effective procurement, issuing, maintenance, and logistics support for each branch will be paramount to unlocking and enabling offensive operations. Placing an enduring NATO or U.S. advisory team with relevant experience in modern sustainment with representatives at the G4/G8, brigade, battalion, and company level of sustainment will help achieve efficiencies and stream line operations. This team alone could make all the difference. This advisory system cannot just rely on advisors at the general officer level. The system needs representatives that work at the operational and tactical levels of sustainment as well or specific implementation issues will be neglected. Senior officers are good for guiding policy, but they are often not familiar on the current specifics necessary to implement those policies effectively.
The mid-to-long term solution is to implement a centrally managed sustainment system for all the services,match new equipment to new units before doing trainingand uniformly train them on principles of operations and MDMP/TLPs with the newly issued equipment. At the end of training evaluate them, retrain soldiers that fail, and then push units forward.
The long-term solution for the UAF also would includea uniform joint approach to training and mobilization so units can operate smoothly even if adjacent units are not from the same service. Currently each service has its own system of creating readiness with unique unit life cycles based on their branch of service. That stove piping leads to inefficiencies and hampers effective mission command. This challenge is not unique to the UA, but Ukraine is in an existential fight for its existence. This change will require a cultural shift and is akin to the 1986 U.S. Goldwater-Nichols Act that required more “jointness” in the U.S. Department of Defense.
This program of instruction may seem ambitious, but it can be done, and for a lot less money than even a single F-16 (older variants cost approximately $30 million, according to aerotime.aero) based on specific T3 programs done by certain volunteer organizations. Direct U.S. or western government support may not be politically and militarily acceptable due to concerns of escalation and international perceptions but support to volunteer organizations that have been conducting training like those mentioned are essential and may be one of the only viable low-cost, short-term solutions. This training will alsobuild partner force capacity and ensure the Ukrainian preference for equipment and training using Western/NATO armaments and standards. This could result in stabilization of the region and a strong ally for decades to come. The U.S. needs a diplomatic win with a strong partner and advocate abroad. This type of support will also go a long way to alleviating the constant issue of billions of dollars’ worth of aid being sent abroad.
These programs cannot be easily replicated by conventional or special operations trainers abroad. Their instructors lack intimate knowledge and experience in the above topics which can be adapted to the unique situation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is also significantly cheaper to train units in Ukraine; with less time spent traveling. A recent DOD-sponsored study, summarized that the effect of smaller non-governmental training organizations has been significant in this conflict, and these agile organizations will continue to offer a low cost and faster level of training that cannot be provided by larger, more hierarchical government organizations or large companies. “Independently operating military veterans from the U.S. (and other Western countries) play an increasingly prominent-and often underestimated-role in supplementing tactical training…” (Murauskaite, Egle E. 2023. “U.S. Military Training Assistance to Ukraine: Impact Assessment.”)
In order to implement this type of program, there are only a small number of organizations that can provide this training. Currently in Ukraine, only one organization existsthat can provide the solution immediately. Ukraine Defense Support Group (UDSG). They are the only group that not only has adapted MDMP and TLPs to meet the current legal requirements in Ukraine but also have the skilled trainers to train at all levels uniformly and with minimal lead time.