Supplement: Reorganisation of the RFA Command in Ukraine
Remember my ‘Keystone Cops in Moscow’…?
The Keystone Cops was a group of comedians producing slapstick comedies about hopelessly incompetent police officers, back in 1912–1917 period.
Ever since the onset of the Russian military intervention in Syria, back in September-October 2015, the ‘performance’ of the RFA and the VKS, and the ‘performance’ of the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Major-General Konashenko, reminded me of the Keystone Cops movies: everybody ‘doing something’, resulting in utmost chaos. So much so that, wasn’t it for all the mass-murder and incredible damage caused, the ‘performance’ of the VKS and the RFA in combat could only be compared to a slapstick comedy…
Along the news coming from Moscow of the last 24–36 hours, at least in the case of Ukraine, there was a ‘very good’ reason for this.
For people like me, the organisation of the RFA is ‘simple’: Putin is the ‘Commander in Chief’, he is issuing orders to Shoygu, Shoygu to the headquarters of the responsible military districts (West OSK and South OSK), and commanders of military districts to commanders of field armies (GTAs, GCAAs, CAAs, and ACs). This is how the RFA is indoctrinated, organised, equipped and trained to work.
Now it turned out that nothing of this was the case so far.
Instead, and ‘faithfully’ along the principle, ‘let all the guys earn their medals’, Putin was issuing his ‘orders’ directly to commanders of field armies (note: Putin is never issuing clear and direct orders: that would make him directly responsible; instead, he’s commanding through ‘rough directives’, so that it’s always the recipient of these who is to blame if something goes wrong). Shoygu, MOD, West OSK and South OSK played no role in operations so far, except for monitoring the growing chaos around them… because, the result was that every commander of every single field army was running his own operation. There was no coordination between them.
Obviously, Putin’s orders were based on Putin’s political interests, Putin’s wishful thinking and illusions, not on military realities: every commander of every field army was ordering his troops to do exactly what he understood Putin demands, even if knowing that the mass of orders was not making any sense.
What a surprise then, the result was a total screw up. Airborne units of the 35th CAA were rushing in complete disregard for coordination with heavier, mechanised units of the 36th CAA — which was slow to follow up, and when it appeared, did not provide support. Eventually, battered units of the 35th ended in the back of the 36th (and the other way around), resulting in that ‘legendary’ traffic jam of their supply columns… Another example: the 1st GTA de-facto fell apart because the 2nd GCAA couldn’t care less about protecting its supply lines, and then the 2nd GCAA’s advance on Kyiv collapsed, and the 6th CAA was mauled by a single Ukrainian mechanised brigade — because the 1st GTA was neither there to protect the flank of its northern- nor that of its southern neighbour…
There was no coordination between RFA’s field armies at all. Each army commander was acting on his own, along ‘order from above’. Exactly like Keystone Cops…
BTW, this practice could be monitored all the way to operations south of Izium and in the Severodonetsk area of the last few days: remnants of the 1st GTA and the 20th CAA were rushed through positions of the 6th CAA with intention of ‘encircling the LOC’ from the north. Independently from this, the 1st AC was ordered to assault and conquer Severodonetsk: why trying to surround the place on one side, while assaulting it on the other — all at the same time? This is making no sense at all.
Obviously, there was no coordination at all between four involved field armies: each of commanders was following his own set of orders, and their units were providing no mutual support to each other…
(BTW, this is explaining even why all the ‘humanitarian corridors’ didn’t work. For example: how should anybody on the Russian side have coordinated exit of civilians out of Mariupol, if these had to pass through the areas controlled by the 1st AC, 8th and then the 58th CAA — if the three didn’t coordinate even their combat operations….?!?)
Now, I do not know who has managed that ‘feat’, but as of yesterday, the entire chain of command of the RFA was restored to what it should have been, right from the start. Henceforth, all the operations in Ukraine are to be run by a single, unified command. That is: the headquarters South OSK, commanded by Army General Aleksandr Dvornikov.
(Pay attention: in the next few days we’re going to hear Western commentary about Dvornikov’s ‘combat experience from Syria’. I say, up front: give me a break with Russian ‘combat experiences in Syria’! That was nonsense: every Russian general, and every pilot/crew of the VKS has that ‘combat experience from Syria’ — and we’ve seen what did it bring them so far.)
What’s much more important is this:
- a) the RFA is indoctrinated, organised, equipped and trained so to be commanded by HQ of local military districts; so far, it wasn’t operating that way; henceforth, it is going to do so.
- b) As an Army General, Dvornikov is rank higher than all the commanders of field armies (they’re Colonel-Generals). This means there will be no discussions about his orders, none of usual competition between generals, and no ‘everybody for himself’ — like there was so far.
- c) Most importantly, having Dvornikov in their back, officers are not going to de-facto ‘abandon their troops in advance’ after receiving Putin’s idiotic directives. Now there is a clear chain of command and thus clear chain of responsibility: they’ll have to ‘be there’, to command and coordinate.
(Add on: one might want to keep in mind that Dvornikov’s troops — 49th CAA and the 58th CAA — have performed far better than those of any other armies , at least until Putin ordered them into head-long rushes on Voznesensk, Mariupol and Zaporozhye, between 4 and 10 March.)
What does this all mean for the future of the war in Ukraine?
While I guess that, once this becomes known to the media, there will be lots of commentary in style of, ‘political interests are going to take precedence over military priorities’ — I expect exactly the opposite to happen: military reality is likely to take precedence over political interests. Of course, Dvornikov is going to try achieving some kind of major success, and that ‘soon’, but he now does have the advantage of keeping all the strings in his hands.
We can see this already on reports about developments of yesterday: it seems, the RFA has stopped all of its (so far: pointless and costly) advances. They stopped pushing south of Izium, they stopped pushing forward in the Severodonetsk area. They seem to be withdrawing from the Kharkiv area, too (and leaving beyond large minefields). They’re now going to take a few days ‘off’, enabling units to replace some of losses, replenish and rest their troops, and repair their vehicles…. and then they’re going to be back in, probably, far better coordinated way than ever since 24 February.
