Here comes Dvornikov…. 10 April 2022
As can be seen here the entire 18th Motor Rifle Division, RFA (that’s about 8,500 troops in some 8–9 BTGs), is in the process of deploying from Belogorod along secondary roads to Velykyi Burluk, in Ukraine.
….and from there along the P-79 road to the Izium area.
Why do I say ‘here comes Dvornikov’?
1.) Let me start with assessing him the way the mass of Western experts is going to do. The first thing you’re going to get to hear about Dvornikov in the Western media is that, he’s got ‘combat experience from Syria’.
Frankly (as always) this is nonsense. Dvornikov hasn’t got any kind of first hand combat experience in Syria, whatsoever. He never got anywhere within 40 kilometres from the frontline in that country.
He’s got far more combat experience while commanding the 154th Independent Motor Rifle Battalion/6th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, then while serving as the Deputy Commander 248th Motor Rifle Regiment/10th Guards Tank Division, and then while commanding the 1st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment/2nd ‘Tamanskaya’ Motor Rifle Division’ — i.e. during the Chechen Wars of the 1990s.
2.) Regarding his service in Syria,
- from August 2015 unitl July 2016, Colonel-General Dvornikov was the first commander of the Group of Russian Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic (GRF).
- In that function, Dvornikov was responsible for all the planning for initial Russian and allied operations against the Syrian insurgency in northern Latakia, northern Hama, and southern Idlib provinces (NOT against the Daesh — i.e. IS/ISIS/ISIL/IGIL: as of 2015–2016, the Daesh was nowhere within 100+ km of Russian positions in Syria).
- Moreover, and in cooperation with the GRF Training Mission to Syrian Arab Army (led by Major-General Sevryukov as of August 2015 — August 2016), Dvornikov was responsible for the first attempt to re-constitute the Syrian Arab Army (as about why was there a need to re-constitute the same… that’s a longer story, where I can only advise the reading of the book Moscow’s Game of Poker, see: https://www.helion.co.uk/.../moscows-game-of-poker...).
3.) What did Dvornikov (and Severyukov) do and how did they command?
They have bunched together all the possible militias into — nominally — ‘regular’ armed forces. For example, 6–7 private military companies and/or militias run/owned by Maher al-Assad, the Makhlouf Clan and different other Alawite warlords of Hama and Latakia provinces. Each was called a ‘brigade’, but actually, none had more than about 500–800 troops, 50–100 ‘tecnnicals’, few artillery pieces and a handful of tanks (i.e. about one third of a modern-day BTG of the RFA).
These were bunched together with the militia of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (essentially: Lebanese and Syrian neo-Nazis), and one ‘brigade’ (ho-hum… this was a reinforced battalion, i.e. all that was left of the former 76th Armoured Brigade, SyAA, after 5 years of war) — into the ‘IV Assault Corps’ (see my reports from early 2017, here on Medium.com, for details).
That much on the positive side. On the negative side, Dvornikov (& Co KG Gesmbh) never managed to get any of Christian or independent Sunny militias of northern Hama involved for longer than 3–4 weeks.
4.) Starting in early October 2015, the IV Assault Corps was then deployed to attack insurgent and jihadist positions ranging from NW Latakia province, via the Orontes River Valley to the NE Hama province.
All assaults were run frontally, all emphasised massive fire-support provided by BTGs of the RFA (artillery, TOS-1 etc.), and the VKS, and all ended in failures and heavy losses (just for example: the one Christian militia that did get involved lost all of its 20+ tanks in a matter of two days — all ‘thanks’ to ‘superior’ Dvornikov’s commanding skills).
5.) By late November 2015, Dvornikov (and Sevryukov) had no other options left but to reach back on ‘assistance’ provided by the IRGC/Hezbollah conglomerate: this was already running a successful offensive into southern Aleppo province (see: Battle of Hader), but still had enough forces to send two small Hezbollah brigades to northern Lattakia, too. After two months of intensive warfare, and after a murderous campaign of aerial bombardment of northern Lattakia — which drove over 80,000 of Turkmen into southern Turkey, while dwindling the strenght of the 1st and 2nd Coastal Divisions of the Free Syrian Army from around 5,000 to less than 2,000 — the Hezbollah managed to punch through and, first, take the village of Ghamam, and then, second, the town of Salma. I.e. the IV Assault Corps (or what was left of it), managed to move the frontline by 10–15 kilometres further north.
….BTW, ever since (i.e. in eight years!) the frontline in question didn’t move for a single metre…
6.) During the same period, Dvornikov and Sevryukov commanded a similar operation against the Ra’astan-Talbiseh pocket, in northern Homs. All their assaults were run in exactly the same fashion: massive fire-power, lots of air strikes, murderous artillery barrages….and then frontal assaults on the ground.
Contrary to the situation in Latakia, the IRGC hasn’t had enough forces to deploy reinforcements there, too, and thus the Russians — i.e. their Assadist troops — failed to move even one metre forward (indeed, the insurgents of Ra’astan-Talbiseh Pocket held out until their negotiated withdrawal in 2017).
7.) Foremost, operations commanded by Dvornikov (and Sevryukov) were run without any kind of coordination with operations simultaneously run by the IRGC. They fought their own war against insurgents, while the IRGC was fighting both against insurgents in Aleppo City, and the Daesh in eastern Aleppo province (see: Battle of Kweres).
8.) By spring of 2016, 8, and then 10 months of the Russian military intervention in Syria, the GRF — i.e. Dvornikov (and Severyukov) — had next to nothing to show. Instead of a ‘quick and cheap victory’, de-facto promised by Putin, the mass of their troops — as far as still alive — was still exactly where it was all the months of fighting before. Only the IRGC had: it could point out that it re-took most of southern Aleppo province, lifted the siege of Nubol and Zahra (NW of Aleppo) etc. All that the Russian generals have managed was to get IRGC to help them take Gamam and Salma. Indeed, in the only case the RFA could have ‘returned the favour’, it failed to do so: in late February 2016, the Russian intel entirely missed the Daesh massing in the open desert west of Raqqa a raid on as-Safira — where it then overrun and slaughtered dozens of IRGC, Hezbollah, and their local allies…
9.) Of course, like any other ‘decent’ Russian general (and they’re all high-nosed chauvinists full of prejudice), Dvornikov was ‘not to be outdone by some camel-herding bimbos’ (see: IRGC). Therefore, although the minimal success of his operation was all thanks to the IRGC, he ignored this fact, and continued insisting on his own ideas, and — between others — demanding the IRGC to subject iself to his command. By June 2016, he (and Sevryukov) were so much at odds with the Iranians that Shoygu had to travel to Tehran to meet the Iranian and Assadist MODs (see my article here: https://warisboring.com/russia-syria-and-iran-have-made.../) — in attempt to sort things out.
Without success: eventually, Shoygu had no other solution but to send Dvornikov back home, and replace him by Lieutenant-General Zhuravlev (of course, both Dvornikov and Servyukov were highly decorated for ‘their achievements’….).
10.) Contrary to Dvornikov, Zhuravlev was the first GRF commander in Syria to enter serious cooperation with the IRGC/Hezbollah conglomerate. Indeed: to start coordinating ‘his’ (i.e. Assadist) operations with those of the IRGC/Hezbollah. This is why, after concluding his regular tour as the CO GRF, in December 2016, he was re-called and re-assigned to that position again, in December 2017 — just in time to coordinate the offensive that wrestled most of eastern Idlib province away from the insurgents, in late 2017 and early 2018…. BTW, Zhuravlev was also — and far more — successful in converting the hodgepodge of Assadist and IRGC militias into the re-constituted ‘Syrian Arab Army’. But, that’s another story…
With other words… a part of me is actually feeling better now: at least we know that Dvornikov knows nothing better and nothing more but, ‘lots of firepower and a mass of troops’. I.e. the Ukrainians can expect extremely massive assaults, but also immense volumes of firepower from his ‘style of command’.
However, as the insurgents of the 1st and 2nd Coastal Division FSyA (not to talk about those in the Ra’astan-Talbiseh Pocket) have shown: there are ways not only to survive, but also to repel such offensives.
The only ‘problem’ I see in Ukraine is the terrain: it is (much) easier to defend the mountains of northern Latakia than the flat steppe of eastern Ukraine. On the other hand, there is not that much difference between, say, the terrain of the Ra’astan-Talbiseh Pocket and the one in the Severodonetsk area…
