One thing to add, system is often formed by KPIs, or in other words what higher command is asking for.
And as commander of Da Vinci battalion mentioned, "you may write tons of explanations on losing a single position, but no one ever asks you about losing people". "So it is easier for the commander to send people to the position for all of them to die, but hold a position, then to retreat in organised manner and preserve people".
So obviously those are expectations that are cascaded along the chain of command. And they are most often communicate someone's particular vision from the chain of command. And the way to solve the task that someone above him puts to him. So those people "above" need to re-evaluate their own expectations and approach, or go. Because small nuances of approach are often distorted as they go down the chain of command. So even if one is declaring regularly about "importance of human lives", but never asks for that, but instead asks why we lose this or that town, that would be inevitably transformed as it does. And I suspect that despite all the declarations it is Zelenskiy himself.
The answer is, of course, in the lack of trust. High command doesn't believe that if commanders are allowed to retreat, they will even fight at all. After all, the best way to not lose people is to always retreat. Such Is the way of soviet army.
There are many (different) ways of organising this system. But first it requires not breaking basic rules of any organisation, like clear personal responsibility. Means it should be very clear who is responsible for what (and that is best when organised in armies and divisions). And then transparent KPIs instead of uncommunicated, verbal and non-verbal KPIs that will stream down the organisation in the absence of strict formal KPIs.
And in terms of actual KPIs the head of the state and his team took a direction at lies and now bound by that. For example the number of manpower and equipment losses reported every day, includes KIA and WIA, destroyed and hit equipment. It would start with reporting only KIA/destroyed (and captured). And asking about that only, for otherwise it does not matter. And then people will start doing what Magyar does, fully destroying equipment, drilling artillery, finishing WIA, etc.
Then how to measure effectiveness? How many own people they've lost to do that. And what result is to their total number of people. And that's it.
Stop there, not more complex then that, and you will need not to issue orders of "no step back". Just don't forget to punish worst and reward the best, regularly. Punish the worst by disbanding and demoting. No need for those SBU, DBR, NABU and the rest of bullshit.
Reward the best by better equipment, choice of their men to replenish and grow, etc. And then better units will run local counterattacks and whatever you can imagine, create traps, funneling enemy to kill zones, creating all new ways of conducting warfare.
By the way, for those that have not watched interview with Syrsk, he mentioned 150K KIA to 434K total, or something like that. So it's 1 to 1.9 ratio, a bit down from Wagner 1 to 2.2 ratio, but that is clear, ru evacuation and tacmed is not getting any better with time.
How would you prevent lying in reports? Drone operators can be traced by their cams, but what about artillery and especially infantry in trenches? Sappers? Honestly, I have a feeling that whatever KPI you would invent, Smekalka and Vranyo will turn everything to shiat. Hundred thousands people wanting to game the system will find a way.
The correct levels of reporting should be established, the central reporting should start with divisional level. And then army level. All source confirmed, can't really stored, in most cases video confirmed, sometimes radio, cyber, agent recon report. A central analytics unit is doing daily verification, akin what volunteers do now, Pepetua, etc.
Division to have a full mix of various branches, including atry, sappers, SSO, and so on. Division to have a full responsibility for clearly defined LOC.
Within division it is managed in a different way. Division, brigade, regiment, company commanders decide what is useful and why. No vertical KPIs straight to each unit, they decide it internally how to organise things.
Another level of reporting is an army level, that has responsibility for the "front", like South, East, North (or South, South East, East, North East, North, whatever). They have "means of higher command" in their availability. Long range MLRS and rocket systems, aviation, long range UAVs, etc. So that those are used in order to achieve the same KPIs, but on an army level. Means they are helping with those to divisions, to achieve their common goal.
While this is certainly a way to govern an army, can you imagine unbelievable number of trained good quality officers needed for such feat? There are ways to achieve it, starting with female conscription and building for years huge training infrastructure, but in reality this will not happen.
Don't see how the number of good quality officers you calculated?
Ask each brigade (and separate battalion, regiment) commander, which another commander he liked cooperation during any episodes of the war the most.
Cluster them based on that into 25 divisions, keeping in mind the need to split properly also artillery, engineering and support units.
Appoint 25 division commanders from brigade commanders, task them with finding their successor.
Appoint 5 army commanders like for example Syrskiy, Darapatiy, Biletskiy, Prokopenko, Budanov. Appoint back Zaluzhniy as CinC. Fire retards from OTU/TOTU/MOTU. And be done with it.
Thank you Tom and Don. Don the problem possibly is the decision makers mindsets and their mil culture, part of their familiar Soviet or Russian mil culture thinking. The staff work required to evaluate objectively the lessons learned and the need for tactical innovations/learning applications plus the systematic application of said lessons learned processs is I believe still not a Soviet/Russian mil leader mindset.
The lessons learned are also in electronic format in the ZSU.
The majority of the ZSU senior officers corps has such problems, that is why the creation of new units is welcomed much by such kind of officers plus the bad examples of promoting inefficient/have problems officers because they are in the seniority/officers list. Plus they might be playing senior officer clique games based on their senior list rankings.(Each class or clique should be promoted as others for parity of their accomplishments)
The ZSU NCO corps development is also one thing you did not mention or it is a topic for another post?
Yeah, to establish training Ukraine needs training school for NCOs built from scratch, it's a huge investment in manpower and time. If Ukrainian leadership doesn't believe the war will continue for 3 more years, there is not point doing it, it's a waste of resources. And nobody believes the war will continue!
The beliefs of the Ukrainian leadership regarding the short-durability of this war should be more than obvious by now. Is also the primary reason why 'there's no time for that', all the time....
The soldiers of all ranks have been providing feedback through the chain of command for years. Now the leadership of successful units are speaking publicly because they have a certain level of immunity from consequences and they are hoping citizens will call for change.
I've been reading Stefan Korshak for a few years and I can't recall a single time he ignored a question by one of his readers on FB or Medium. The same here. However, there is a question we don't want to ask nor answer. Is the government of Ukraine as interested in ALL its people as it is Western money and power? Israel is exhibit 'A' in this. Trump wants a war stopped on his inauguration day. Done. (same deal waiting to be signed since May).
However, the IDF beating up on Palestinians does not have the same geopolitical implications as the Russia/Ukraine situation. Trump will want to end a war he believe can be ended in the same way he told Israel to wrap things up.
The implications of that are scary indeed.
The point I'm getting to is that one has to wonder if subconsciously Zelensky is keeping the military weak so that he can more easily acquiesce to a Western "peace" deal. In the beginning he said, "we don't need your boots just the weapons". He doesn't say that anymore. He must accept that it's more than weapons that Ukraine needs. More soldiers. But politically, he can't call up more soldiers. So it is what it is.
No one believe Ukraine's soldiers can stop Russia from advancing. You believe it. I believe it. Many Ukrainians believe it.
But Ukraine is a de-facto oligarchy with Zelensky as front-man. Can we handle the truth? The lack of training isn't a bug, it's become a feature. Russia won't be coming back in 4 to 5 years. It is mortally wounded, economically, militarily. When a new gov't takes over in Russia will the U.S. care where there "good guys" are, in the new Russia or Ukraine?
I don't know what Zelensky thinks or why he thinks it but it would surprise me if he wanted to keep the military weak and was willing to kill Ukrainian soldiers and risk national sovereignty to do so.
As I wrote "subconsciously". I don't question that he has his heart in the right place, not for a second. I need to elaborate further at some point. As I said, question comes with a third rail ;)
It's rather as with every leader, you do a few mistakes, and then get criticism, and then you get defensive, and then a few more and a bit more defensive. And then you start to create your own reality in order to prove critics wrong.
So it's a very difficult loop, where every time leader encountering challenge needs to see how his thinking and actions led to that, and what needs to change. That requires enormous amount of self-respect and resolve.
Exactly. Which is why everyone needs someone above them to see the bigger picture. The "people" above Zelensky see the bigger picture for the U.S. and Europe. Maybe that's the best picture to have?
Tom and Don argue that Ukraine needs better trained and organized troops. The question who does that benefit? Or who doesn't care as much about that as Ukrainians? Remember when Zelensky replaced those who were complicit with Russia? Who replaces Ukrainians complicit with the U.S.!?
What can I say, James. You're a glutton for punishment HAHA ;) I believe things will go wrong for the U.S. in ways we can barely comprehend or imagine.
If I could get on a megaphone to my fellow Americans I'd say, "Our idiocy is going to fuck us but good. We couldn't stop the Houthis. We couldn't even build a simple highway around Afghanistan. Israel couldn't hold onto a couple of miles of Lebanon. We won't protect Philippine fishing boats. We couldn't stop Iraq from becoming best buds with Iran. We can't manage Syria. In the past 4 years our weapons, in Ukraine or Israel have DONE NOTHING when it comes down to protecting global trade or securing territory.
Everyone hates us. As soon as the Ukrainians join the rest of the world who will stand by us when we need them? A ship will be sunk, plan shot down, or a military base obliterated and what will we be able to do about it?
Like many Ukrainians, I think the opposite about Trump. Whatever he does (and I admit, it's impossible to tell with Trump) will be better than what Biden did, which was to set the Ukrainians up for complete destruction, keeping them out of peace talks, feeding delusions of defeating the Russians, but providing just enough support to keep the war going for more and more killing and destruction. Even a very bad peace will be better than that, and a somewhat decent peace is possible.
You are right, the main weapon of ruzzians are corruption especially in neighbouring countries. They can't be defeated with even more corruption in this field.
The one needs to defeat their own corruption in order to defeat the ruzzians.
Corruption is most definitely and by far the biggest problem in Ukraine -- I agree with you there. But corruption in Ukraine was not indeed caused by Russia -- it's not a "weapon". It's an entirely homegrown problem in all of these countries.
You are not completely correct. There are instruments that are used to corrupt foreign government and politicians and even nations. Usually it is something that is supposed to be "cheap", cheaper than something from other places - cheap gas, cheap oil, cheap workforce - and provided not through free market, but through political decisions and machinations. Russia certainly employed natural gas in such a way. Gas pipeline through Ukraine was always seen by me as one of the sources of corruption.
I know it will be an entirely novel and unusual idea for you, but let's entertain it for a moment: people can genuinely have different ideas what is in the best interests of whom. I'm pretty damn sure that my and yours ideas about what is in the best interests for Ukraine are different; I'm pretty sure your posts are not in the best interests of Ukraine, but I don't think it's because you are corrupted by Russia.
Zelenski would loose many things from a weak army: lost teritory, lost support from the West, political capital as defeated/ ineffective leader.
He wants and needs a strong army but he doesnt have patience to build one. He treats UAF like it can do anything and blames shortfallings on his allies. They didn't send enough weapons, didn't stop enough integrated chips from reaching Russia and didn't punish anyone buying Russian oil.
Russia is not "mortally wounded, economically, militarily" as far as we can see, except in the fantasies of Times Radio and Ben Hodges. We should not just swallow our own propaganda, if we want to understand what is really happening. In the words of RUSI from last summer, they have an "AK-47 economy", crude, inefficient, but damned rugged. War production is churning along. Recruiting and force generation is churning along. We're going to need a peace deal which makes enough sense for all sides to stick, and not just wait for Russia to fall apart.
I disagree but...can't disagree. I agree that if North Korea can exist for 70 years with no connection to the West then why not Russia? I believe Russia doesn't want to exist like North Korea so in the way I disagree. But they CAN go on like this for years so I agree with you we're deluded if we think Russia can't.
The fact is, Russia has more resources to sell than Ukraine so I don't see how it doesn't find a market. So what if China begins to supply all the equipment needed to keep Russia's oil/gas going? It's another problem I see in the media which I imagine you'll agree with. We think we can do technologically what China can't. Another wake-up call waiting for Americans.
I also believe if Ukraine was able to get a peace deal by giving up some territory it would be the stronger in 4-5 years, not Russia. If they can't, if they can't become a tech/military powerhouse, well then, might as will go back to the ole' Soviet lifestyle. Ukraine has some great wins. I don't have the answers.
Cheers. I'm actually involved with Ukraine reconstruction in my day job. I'm optimistic about Ukraine in the longer run IF being defeated in the war gives them a full political reset and fresh start (like Germany after WWII) AND they are allowed into the EU (which I strongly advocate and which the Russians indicated a few times they could tolerate), where they will get good tutelage and abundant investment (something I, personally, am eager to get on with). And IF we stop this thing soon enough that there's something left to reconstruct. For this to happen, however, there will also need to be a durable peace, not just a Minsk-like pause (territory alone will not nearly achieve that). We don't know for sure what will happen to Russia in the next 5 years -- it could be pretty much anything -- but I would not bet my country on Russia's being militarily weaker or less aggressive, if we fail to construct a real comprehensive redesign of European security arrangements. They are on a trajectory to be stronger, on the contrary. We need to agree on a formula for not threatening one another and winding down the hostility and tension, ideally disarming, which means we will have to talk about everything they do which we don't like, and every single thing we do which they don't like, and try to agree. It will be jaw, jaw, jaw for sure, and might take years, but that is vastly better than wah, wah, wah.
My 2-cents is Europe has already voted with their feet that aren't moving ;) Same for the U.S. George Friedman made fun of the "fight for democracy" ideal for years. He was certainly right about that.
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that Russia was only able to take the territory in the East and South of Ukraine because, well, a lot of things, but not because Ukraine couldn't have stopped them if properly equipped and organized. In short, Russia, being bigger, took advantage where it could, but not really WHERE it wanted to.
One might argue that Russia is gaining ground which means that's not true and it can take Ukraine eventually, given enough time.
I don't see that. Ukraine is just tired and depressed. How could it not be! But if we look at it objectively, which is why we have to take Tom's and Don's frustrations with a pinch of salt, Ukraine has turned into the best fighting military in the world. It's technology is beyond that of anyone else. I'm just speculating but that my belief. Of course, Russia becoming better at the fighting but I still don't see the innovation in drones from Russia like I see in Ukraine. That stuff takes time.
What I'm saying in a long winded way is I don't see how European defense pacts will be worth the paper they're written on. They didn't deliver in my book. But they can't stop funding Ukraine either. Ukraine just needs to get its breath.
I think you've said this too. Ukraine is going to get there. If it can do a deal with Russia that gives up some land for lives in the next few years it's a deal that would favor Ukraine. I still believe Putin blundered invading and if he can blunder in war he can blunder in peace haha. Well, I'm blathering.
I agree with many of your points here - Ukraine probably the world’s best fighting force today notwithstanding all of Don’s and Tom’s accurate criticisms, that Putin’s invasion was a blunder, etc. However, they can’t match Russian manpower, and the West lacks commitment to ramp up war production to match the Russian’s. And Russia despite everything has turned out to be very, very determined not to lose. Some innovations here and courage there can help overcome uphill odds to some extent, but these odds are too uphill, and Ukraine is sadly but predictably losing the war. The risk now is collapse, which would allow the Russians to overrun the country and possibly exterminate it as an independent state. I think the Russian military approach is not so much to win territory today, as it is to achieve Ukraine military collapse, due to sheer mismatch of force, expending as much of their own force as necessary just because they can. Due to sheer grit the Ukrainians haven’t collapsed yet, but it could happen any day. For their sake, we need to get this stopped. Yes, properly equipped and supplied with enough equipment and munitions and at the right time — they could maybe have stopped the Russians hard enough that Putin would have thought twice about continuing — maybe. But we were never committed enough to ramp up production enough to do that, even as the Russians were going over to a war economy. We spent $2 trillion losing to the TALIBAN, for God’s sake — and we thought we could beat the RUSSIANS on $200B? Seriously? Of course no one serious ever thought we were going to beat the Russians on that level of commitment. Biden’s team only ever wanted to smash up and bleed the Russians (Kagan and Nuland persuaded them that this would be good for our security), and too bad about the Ukrainians. So they promoted a lot of fairytale propaganda while just lifting one politically feasible finger. Slava Ukraini! I spent the week around New Year’s with a couple of influential Ukrainians who support my idea that at the end of all this, Ukrainians will hate Biden more than they do Putin. That’s what we will end up getting for our $200B. Another magnificent foreign policy coup to follow those we had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.
Thank you. Let's hope changes like these happen sooner rather than later.
Btw, in 1939 the British Army established 'Battle Schools'. The idea was to accustom inexperienced officers and NCOs to working under combat conditions. It was a great success and it still exists today.
One of the reasons why Field Marshall Montgomery was adored by the lower ranks was that he cared about casualties and officer incompetence. When he was commanding XII Corps in the South of England and preparing for an expected German invasion, he ruthlessly sacked senior officers who were either physically unfit for combat or incompetent. No REMFs for Monty. It worked.
Hard to argue this. The whole idea that they have no time is now pretty much a bs argument. They need to cut the crap and just get to doing it. But I'm curious about the new BDEs. Are you saying that these two other BDEs were formed after Zelensky said they would stop? Or were they in the process? He may have stopped the practice but these units had finished, it's not really clear in what you wrote.
He said they should stop forming new units. New units are being formed. It doesn't really matter if they were started after he made that statement or before. They are continuing to be formed when doing so will only weaken the army.
Keep in mind that thousands of soldiers are regularly removed from brigades that are forming. They need to disband these units and move their resources to existing units.
I can explain the idea behind new units. 60 percent of all existing units in Ukrainian army are shiat, they can't hold their own, their old-guard soviet-style officers are horrible, they learn nothing and don't care to learn, they simply waste their men. Sending new men there is a travesty, it's a useless waste. New units created, properly trained - with new officers - old units are destroyed, not reinforced.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was advice from NATO advisers - don't reinforce old bad soviet-tradition units, build a new NATO-type army.
But something, as always, went wrong with those fine plans.
Ok, got it now. Fully agree with you on how this weakens the army. My understanding was that they had ceased forming new units, not just talking about it.
This is a very interesting citation: «The commander of the 108th Separate Battalion “Da Vinci Wolves” went one step further, saying, “The realities of modern warfare and bitter experience show that foreign training without adaptation to Ukrainian conditions and work within the unit is a waste of time and has terrible consequences. Our mechanics, drivers, tankers, artillerymen, grenade launchers and machine gunners should teach NATO how to use weapons, and all we need from partners is maintenance instructions.”» I am not really surprised. Especially now after three years of war and development. While the West may offer basic training like the one outlined above the realities of the war is probably very different than what the western doctrine expects. Maybe the western armies have some specialist training in medics (doubt it is better, but) or logistics or something. But fighting? Likely more to learn from their own experts. But it is a challenge to get that expertise to do the training.
Is there any real evidence that Russia has striked (or has capacity to strike) Ukranian training grounds? How hard can it be to train, say 10-20 thousand recruits a month given Russian capabilities? How hard can it be to expand the scope of military training? Three years into the war, and I don't get why Ukraine (the biggest country in Europe) has to send so many troops abroad to get proper military education.
I have no good answer. But from the point of view of a nation providing such training (Norway) I can tell you that we feel good about providing it. Our local officers and trainers are exited and wants to help. The society is. We feel good they are training in our neck of the woods. Useful. Literally. I am not saying this training is bad, useless or anything like that. But is clearly an effort the trainers like to do, and this may (may) be one of the reasons that Ukraine sends them. Ideally it takes some training burden of them. It might even be relevant, the words from the Da Vinci officer notwithstanding. So, we might be doing something stupid for very good reasons. Nothing new there.
Last September a Russian missile struck the Poltava Military Institute for Communications and a nearby hospital. Ukraine targeted many Russian training grounds throughout the war.
The first step is to avoid detection. It's easier to do that if the training operation is small and constantly moves locations. While that is fairly easy to do with individual training, it becomes increasingly hard to remain undetected is the size of the training operation increases.
Russia had indeed hit previously Ukrainian training facilities across whole country, even in the west. It is not impossible to evade those strikes, though. There is a wholly different problem: Ukraine has no good military trainers. Training academies and all the remaining military training traditions are Soviet, they are no good at all. There are no trainers capable to train good officers who would be able to train their soldiers.
It would take years to organise new training schools from the ground. And here is the problem: Ukrainian leadership doesn't believe that war will go for years. They are constantly sure that Russia is on the brink of defeat. Hell, people HERE tell me that Russia is going to fall apart in 2025, 2026 at the latest!! So WHY BOTHER with any long-term programs then? It would just be a waste!
Ten years from now they'll still believe that Russia is 6 months from catastrophe and do no long-term planning.
Training for a theoretical confrontation against the Soviet army is a different skill set than fighting in Vietnam, which was happening at the same time. And that is different than fighting an urban guerilla war in Iraq or a guerilla war in the mountains of Afghanistan. On the front lines, each has their own unique properties. Knowing them can decrease the rate of death and increase the rate of killing.
There are still general organizational concepts that applies to all these conflicts.
Basic skills, such as firing weapons and first aid, can be taught anywhere and by allies and Ukrainians. When applying these skills to operations ranging from squad to brigade levels, the training must replicate the fighting as much as possible. And the styles of fighting for both sides have changed several times in three years. That is where Ukraine must be involved in developing and, hopefully, leading the training.
The best units regularly train their personnel that rotate off the front line. It's how skills are retained and refined. It's how they live longer and function more effectively. This needs to be replicated throughout the army. It's completely within Ukraine's capability to do so.
Thank you for this analysis. I think that if I took all the lessons from it and just added a shitload of text (what is ChatGPT for), so each point was a chapter I would clearly have a new management book. Nothing really new there, but that isn’t the point of a management book is it? The point is packaging and marketing?.. leadership the Ukrainian army way… should sell well? Ok, it’s a problem that they are not following the advice. But again that is pretty normal for management theories. Ideas like span of control has been around for a century and people are definitely still ignoring it. Anyway, it’s extremely sad to see your description of how poorly managed the Ukrainian army is. At higher level. But the fish rots from the head?
Thank God someone has finally called out the political BS about the importance of NATO training Ukrainians at the tactical level. Ukrainians should be training NATO in tactics, while it would appear NATO should be advising Ukraine at the organizational level. In fact the situation seems to be rather the opposite.
As I am reading through the «Weekly updates» as well as some other blogs about the war in Ukraine I come to some uncomfortable conclusions. The war isn’t going badly enough for Zelenskyy and friends to really change things. I am afraid there is a need, or rather there must be, some serious significant loss on the battlefield that forces them to take action. There are two such catastrophes that can happen. Either the total expulsion from Kursk, or the loss of Pokrorovsk. I think the latter is bound to happen if there are no changes in the infantry operations. Even if drones can and will make this very expensive for Russia we all know that won’t matter. Pyrrhic or not, if they take that city it is a victory. I hope they don’t. Really really. But I also think that without a large «external shock» nothing will happen. We can only hope the shock is big enough.
Neither of those are catastrophes, and both of them will happen eventually. Loss of Pokrovsk and its coal that was so needed for Ukraine is inevitable and it will likely happen sooner than loss of Kursk expansion. After all, Kursk is of no importance for Putin or Russia, and Pokrovsk has actual value.
Neither of those would be real shocks for Ukrainian people or command.
There is only one legal way to change Zelensky, the impeachment procedure in the Parlament. Unfortunately, the President has the majority. Even the legal way is useless. The elections during martial law are forbidden. Denis Shmygal can be the head of Ukraine if Zelensky receives the impeachment.
You should start with the facts that Zelensky and UA parliament seriously violated constitution when sabotaged the elections which shall not have happend in the democratic country.
The head of parliament of UA shall be as acting president untill new one is elected, like it was accomplished when Yanukovich fled to ruzzia. Read your constitution Inspired defender of UA.
Should I? It's useless talk. I know who you are at the fist sight and what your aim is. I replied just to verify your level of smartness. Olgino or Savushkina Street never changes. Also, I know that Tom catches the Russian attention and you never leave him alone until he stops talking about Ukraine.
Tom, I have one thought and this thought can't leave me. Why were the Russians bombing JSC Motor Sich, but didn't touch the 'Iskra' company? I mean Iskra in Zporizhzhia, which produces many radars, electronic equipment, etc.The distance between the two companies is 3-4 km. I have only one explanation, the Russians spies are working well and aim the missiles precisionly.
Dear Don and Tom, thank you!
One thing to add, system is often formed by KPIs, or in other words what higher command is asking for.
And as commander of Da Vinci battalion mentioned, "you may write tons of explanations on losing a single position, but no one ever asks you about losing people". "So it is easier for the commander to send people to the position for all of them to die, but hold a position, then to retreat in organised manner and preserve people".
So obviously those are expectations that are cascaded along the chain of command. And they are most often communicate someone's particular vision from the chain of command. And the way to solve the task that someone above him puts to him. So those people "above" need to re-evaluate their own expectations and approach, or go. Because small nuances of approach are often distorted as they go down the chain of command. So even if one is declaring regularly about "importance of human lives", but never asks for that, but instead asks why we lose this or that town, that would be inevitably transformed as it does. And I suspect that despite all the declarations it is Zelenskiy himself.
The answer is, of course, in the lack of trust. High command doesn't believe that if commanders are allowed to retreat, they will even fight at all. After all, the best way to not lose people is to always retreat. Such Is the way of soviet army.
Their fears are not entirely unfounded.
There are many (different) ways of organising this system. But first it requires not breaking basic rules of any organisation, like clear personal responsibility. Means it should be very clear who is responsible for what (and that is best when organised in armies and divisions). And then transparent KPIs instead of uncommunicated, verbal and non-verbal KPIs that will stream down the organisation in the absence of strict formal KPIs.
And in terms of actual KPIs the head of the state and his team took a direction at lies and now bound by that. For example the number of manpower and equipment losses reported every day, includes KIA and WIA, destroyed and hit equipment. It would start with reporting only KIA/destroyed (and captured). And asking about that only, for otherwise it does not matter. And then people will start doing what Magyar does, fully destroying equipment, drilling artillery, finishing WIA, etc.
Then how to measure effectiveness? How many own people they've lost to do that. And what result is to their total number of people. And that's it.
Stop there, not more complex then that, and you will need not to issue orders of "no step back". Just don't forget to punish worst and reward the best, regularly. Punish the worst by disbanding and demoting. No need for those SBU, DBR, NABU and the rest of bullshit.
Reward the best by better equipment, choice of their men to replenish and grow, etc. And then better units will run local counterattacks and whatever you can imagine, create traps, funneling enemy to kill zones, creating all new ways of conducting warfare.
By the way, for those that have not watched interview with Syrsk, he mentioned 150K KIA to 434K total, or something like that. So it's 1 to 1.9 ratio, a bit down from Wagner 1 to 2.2 ratio, but that is clear, ru evacuation and tacmed is not getting any better with time.
How would you prevent lying in reports? Drone operators can be traced by their cams, but what about artillery and especially infantry in trenches? Sappers? Honestly, I have a feeling that whatever KPI you would invent, Smekalka and Vranyo will turn everything to shiat. Hundred thousands people wanting to game the system will find a way.
The correct levels of reporting should be established, the central reporting should start with divisional level. And then army level. All source confirmed, can't really stored, in most cases video confirmed, sometimes radio, cyber, agent recon report. A central analytics unit is doing daily verification, akin what volunteers do now, Pepetua, etc.
Division to have a full mix of various branches, including atry, sappers, SSO, and so on. Division to have a full responsibility for clearly defined LOC.
Within division it is managed in a different way. Division, brigade, regiment, company commanders decide what is useful and why. No vertical KPIs straight to each unit, they decide it internally how to organise things.
Another level of reporting is an army level, that has responsibility for the "front", like South, East, North (or South, South East, East, North East, North, whatever). They have "means of higher command" in their availability. Long range MLRS and rocket systems, aviation, long range UAVs, etc. So that those are used in order to achieve the same KPIs, but on an army level. Means they are helping with those to divisions, to achieve their common goal.
While this is certainly a way to govern an army, can you imagine unbelievable number of trained good quality officers needed for such feat? There are ways to achieve it, starting with female conscription and building for years huge training infrastructure, but in reality this will not happen.
Don't see how the number of good quality officers you calculated?
Ask each brigade (and separate battalion, regiment) commander, which another commander he liked cooperation during any episodes of the war the most.
Cluster them based on that into 25 divisions, keeping in mind the need to split properly also artillery, engineering and support units.
Appoint 25 division commanders from brigade commanders, task them with finding their successor.
Appoint 5 army commanders like for example Syrskiy, Darapatiy, Biletskiy, Prokopenko, Budanov. Appoint back Zaluzhniy as CinC. Fire retards from OTU/TOTU/MOTU. And be done with it.
Same number of good officers minus retards.
Clear, concise, required changes. Laid out in an easily readable and hopefully, actionable fashion. Let's hope enough people pay attention 👍
Thank you Tom and Don. Don the problem possibly is the decision makers mindsets and their mil culture, part of their familiar Soviet or Russian mil culture thinking. The staff work required to evaluate objectively the lessons learned and the need for tactical innovations/learning applications plus the systematic application of said lessons learned processs is I believe still not a Soviet/Russian mil leader mindset.
The lessons learned are also in electronic format in the ZSU.
The majority of the ZSU senior officers corps has such problems, that is why the creation of new units is welcomed much by such kind of officers plus the bad examples of promoting inefficient/have problems officers because they are in the seniority/officers list. Plus they might be playing senior officer clique games based on their senior list rankings.(Each class or clique should be promoted as others for parity of their accomplishments)
The ZSU NCO corps development is also one thing you did not mention or it is a topic for another post?
Thanks again.
The NCO corps comes up with improved training. For that, one first must force Zele, Syrsky & Buddies to reform the training...
Understood.
What NCO corps? From what I know, ZSU has no NCO corps nor tradition of training one
As said: comes with the training - or not, because there is no training.
Yeah, to establish training Ukraine needs training school for NCOs built from scratch, it's a huge investment in manpower and time. If Ukrainian leadership doesn't believe the war will continue for 3 more years, there is not point doing it, it's a waste of resources. And nobody believes the war will continue!
The beliefs of the Ukrainian leadership regarding the short-durability of this war should be more than obvious by now. Is also the primary reason why 'there's no time for that', all the time....
This is a good article.
The patriotism of Ukrainian senior leadership is truly admirable.
They will rather sacrifice their whole country before they do any "uncomfortable" reforms
The soldiers of all ranks have been providing feedback through the chain of command for years. Now the leadership of successful units are speaking publicly because they have a certain level of immunity from consequences and they are hoping citizens will call for change.
Yeah, "we do not need that western bullshits, we do in our way".
I've been reading Stefan Korshak for a few years and I can't recall a single time he ignored a question by one of his readers on FB or Medium. The same here. However, there is a question we don't want to ask nor answer. Is the government of Ukraine as interested in ALL its people as it is Western money and power? Israel is exhibit 'A' in this. Trump wants a war stopped on his inauguration day. Done. (same deal waiting to be signed since May).
However, the IDF beating up on Palestinians does not have the same geopolitical implications as the Russia/Ukraine situation. Trump will want to end a war he believe can be ended in the same way he told Israel to wrap things up.
The implications of that are scary indeed.
The point I'm getting to is that one has to wonder if subconsciously Zelensky is keeping the military weak so that he can more easily acquiesce to a Western "peace" deal. In the beginning he said, "we don't need your boots just the weapons". He doesn't say that anymore. He must accept that it's more than weapons that Ukraine needs. More soldiers. But politically, he can't call up more soldiers. So it is what it is.
No one believe Ukraine's soldiers can stop Russia from advancing. You believe it. I believe it. Many Ukrainians believe it.
But Ukraine is a de-facto oligarchy with Zelensky as front-man. Can we handle the truth? The lack of training isn't a bug, it's become a feature. Russia won't be coming back in 4 to 5 years. It is mortally wounded, economically, militarily. When a new gov't takes over in Russia will the U.S. care where there "good guys" are, in the new Russia or Ukraine?
The Ukrainians who fought to defend the border...
I don't know what Zelensky thinks or why he thinks it but it would surprise me if he wanted to keep the military weak and was willing to kill Ukrainian soldiers and risk national sovereignty to do so.
As I wrote "subconsciously". I don't question that he has his heart in the right place, not for a second. I need to elaborate further at some point. As I said, question comes with a third rail ;)
It's rather as with every leader, you do a few mistakes, and then get criticism, and then you get defensive, and then a few more and a bit more defensive. And then you start to create your own reality in order to prove critics wrong.
So it's a very difficult loop, where every time leader encountering challenge needs to see how his thinking and actions led to that, and what needs to change. That requires enormous amount of self-respect and resolve.
Exactly. Which is why everyone needs someone above them to see the bigger picture. The "people" above Zelensky see the bigger picture for the U.S. and Europe. Maybe that's the best picture to have?
Tom and Don argue that Ukraine needs better trained and organized troops. The question who does that benefit? Or who doesn't care as much about that as Ukrainians? Remember when Zelensky replaced those who were complicit with Russia? Who replaces Ukrainians complicit with the U.S.!?
Third rail anyone?
Agree completely. Whatever else Zelensky is, it's not that, whether consciously or otherwise.
I just watched Trump's 2nd Inaugural speech. I am not hopeful for Ukraine. Sorry to say this. I only hope that I am incorrect in this assessment.
What can I say, James. You're a glutton for punishment HAHA ;) I believe things will go wrong for the U.S. in ways we can barely comprehend or imagine.
If I could get on a megaphone to my fellow Americans I'd say, "Our idiocy is going to fuck us but good. We couldn't stop the Houthis. We couldn't even build a simple highway around Afghanistan. Israel couldn't hold onto a couple of miles of Lebanon. We won't protect Philippine fishing boats. We couldn't stop Iraq from becoming best buds with Iran. We can't manage Syria. In the past 4 years our weapons, in Ukraine or Israel have DONE NOTHING when it comes down to protecting global trade or securing territory.
Everyone hates us. As soon as the Ukrainians join the rest of the world who will stand by us when we need them? A ship will be sunk, plan shot down, or a military base obliterated and what will we be able to do about it?
I have become quite the curmudgeon in my dotage.
Like many Ukrainians, I think the opposite about Trump. Whatever he does (and I admit, it's impossible to tell with Trump) will be better than what Biden did, which was to set the Ukrainians up for complete destruction, keeping them out of peace talks, feeding delusions of defeating the Russians, but providing just enough support to keep the war going for more and more killing and destruction. Even a very bad peace will be better than that, and a somewhat decent peace is possible.
You are right, the main weapon of ruzzians are corruption especially in neighbouring countries. They can't be defeated with even more corruption in this field.
The one needs to defeat their own corruption in order to defeat the ruzzians.
Corruption is most definitely and by far the biggest problem in Ukraine -- I agree with you there. But corruption in Ukraine was not indeed caused by Russia -- it's not a "weapon". It's an entirely homegrown problem in all of these countries.
You are not completely correct. There are instruments that are used to corrupt foreign government and politicians and even nations. Usually it is something that is supposed to be "cheap", cheaper than something from other places - cheap gas, cheap oil, cheap workforce - and provided not through free market, but through political decisions and machinations. Russia certainly employed natural gas in such a way. Gas pipeline through Ukraine was always seen by me as one of the sources of corruption.
Not that it's the main or only source!
Are you saying that Ukrainian government officials are acting in the best interests of ruzzia not because of corruption?
I know it will be an entirely novel and unusual idea for you, but let's entertain it for a moment: people can genuinely have different ideas what is in the best interests of whom. I'm pretty damn sure that my and yours ideas about what is in the best interests for Ukraine are different; I'm pretty sure your posts are not in the best interests of Ukraine, but I don't think it's because you are corrupted by Russia.
Zelenski would loose many things from a weak army: lost teritory, lost support from the West, political capital as defeated/ ineffective leader.
He wants and needs a strong army but he doesnt have patience to build one. He treats UAF like it can do anything and blames shortfallings on his allies. They didn't send enough weapons, didn't stop enough integrated chips from reaching Russia and didn't punish anyone buying Russian oil.
Russia is not "mortally wounded, economically, militarily" as far as we can see, except in the fantasies of Times Radio and Ben Hodges. We should not just swallow our own propaganda, if we want to understand what is really happening. In the words of RUSI from last summer, they have an "AK-47 economy", crude, inefficient, but damned rugged. War production is churning along. Recruiting and force generation is churning along. We're going to need a peace deal which makes enough sense for all sides to stick, and not just wait for Russia to fall apart.
I disagree but...can't disagree. I agree that if North Korea can exist for 70 years with no connection to the West then why not Russia? I believe Russia doesn't want to exist like North Korea so in the way I disagree. But they CAN go on like this for years so I agree with you we're deluded if we think Russia can't.
The fact is, Russia has more resources to sell than Ukraine so I don't see how it doesn't find a market. So what if China begins to supply all the equipment needed to keep Russia's oil/gas going? It's another problem I see in the media which I imagine you'll agree with. We think we can do technologically what China can't. Another wake-up call waiting for Americans.
I also believe if Ukraine was able to get a peace deal by giving up some territory it would be the stronger in 4-5 years, not Russia. If they can't, if they can't become a tech/military powerhouse, well then, might as will go back to the ole' Soviet lifestyle. Ukraine has some great wins. I don't have the answers.
I appreciate your perspective!
Cheers. I'm actually involved with Ukraine reconstruction in my day job. I'm optimistic about Ukraine in the longer run IF being defeated in the war gives them a full political reset and fresh start (like Germany after WWII) AND they are allowed into the EU (which I strongly advocate and which the Russians indicated a few times they could tolerate), where they will get good tutelage and abundant investment (something I, personally, am eager to get on with). And IF we stop this thing soon enough that there's something left to reconstruct. For this to happen, however, there will also need to be a durable peace, not just a Minsk-like pause (territory alone will not nearly achieve that). We don't know for sure what will happen to Russia in the next 5 years -- it could be pretty much anything -- but I would not bet my country on Russia's being militarily weaker or less aggressive, if we fail to construct a real comprehensive redesign of European security arrangements. They are on a trajectory to be stronger, on the contrary. We need to agree on a formula for not threatening one another and winding down the hostility and tension, ideally disarming, which means we will have to talk about everything they do which we don't like, and every single thing we do which they don't like, and try to agree. It will be jaw, jaw, jaw for sure, and might take years, but that is vastly better than wah, wah, wah.
My 2-cents is Europe has already voted with their feet that aren't moving ;) Same for the U.S. George Friedman made fun of the "fight for democracy" ideal for years. He was certainly right about that.
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that Russia was only able to take the territory in the East and South of Ukraine because, well, a lot of things, but not because Ukraine couldn't have stopped them if properly equipped and organized. In short, Russia, being bigger, took advantage where it could, but not really WHERE it wanted to.
One might argue that Russia is gaining ground which means that's not true and it can take Ukraine eventually, given enough time.
I don't see that. Ukraine is just tired and depressed. How could it not be! But if we look at it objectively, which is why we have to take Tom's and Don's frustrations with a pinch of salt, Ukraine has turned into the best fighting military in the world. It's technology is beyond that of anyone else. I'm just speculating but that my belief. Of course, Russia becoming better at the fighting but I still don't see the innovation in drones from Russia like I see in Ukraine. That stuff takes time.
What I'm saying in a long winded way is I don't see how European defense pacts will be worth the paper they're written on. They didn't deliver in my book. But they can't stop funding Ukraine either. Ukraine just needs to get its breath.
I think you've said this too. Ukraine is going to get there. If it can do a deal with Russia that gives up some land for lives in the next few years it's a deal that would favor Ukraine. I still believe Putin blundered invading and if he can blunder in war he can blunder in peace haha. Well, I'm blathering.
I agree with many of your points here - Ukraine probably the world’s best fighting force today notwithstanding all of Don’s and Tom’s accurate criticisms, that Putin’s invasion was a blunder, etc. However, they can’t match Russian manpower, and the West lacks commitment to ramp up war production to match the Russian’s. And Russia despite everything has turned out to be very, very determined not to lose. Some innovations here and courage there can help overcome uphill odds to some extent, but these odds are too uphill, and Ukraine is sadly but predictably losing the war. The risk now is collapse, which would allow the Russians to overrun the country and possibly exterminate it as an independent state. I think the Russian military approach is not so much to win territory today, as it is to achieve Ukraine military collapse, due to sheer mismatch of force, expending as much of their own force as necessary just because they can. Due to sheer grit the Ukrainians haven’t collapsed yet, but it could happen any day. For their sake, we need to get this stopped. Yes, properly equipped and supplied with enough equipment and munitions and at the right time — they could maybe have stopped the Russians hard enough that Putin would have thought twice about continuing — maybe. But we were never committed enough to ramp up production enough to do that, even as the Russians were going over to a war economy. We spent $2 trillion losing to the TALIBAN, for God’s sake — and we thought we could beat the RUSSIANS on $200B? Seriously? Of course no one serious ever thought we were going to beat the Russians on that level of commitment. Biden’s team only ever wanted to smash up and bleed the Russians (Kagan and Nuland persuaded them that this would be good for our security), and too bad about the Ukrainians. So they promoted a lot of fairytale propaganda while just lifting one politically feasible finger. Slava Ukraini! I spent the week around New Year’s with a couple of influential Ukrainians who support my idea that at the end of all this, Ukrainians will hate Biden more than they do Putin. That’s what we will end up getting for our $200B. Another magnificent foreign policy coup to follow those we had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.
Don't get me started on Biden ;) Oh boy don't get me started!
Thank you. Let's hope changes like these happen sooner rather than later.
Btw, in 1939 the British Army established 'Battle Schools'. The idea was to accustom inexperienced officers and NCOs to working under combat conditions. It was a great success and it still exists today.
One of the reasons why Field Marshall Montgomery was adored by the lower ranks was that he cared about casualties and officer incompetence. When he was commanding XII Corps in the South of England and preparing for an expected German invasion, he ruthlessly sacked senior officers who were either physically unfit for combat or incompetent. No REMFs for Monty. It worked.
Hard to argue this. The whole idea that they have no time is now pretty much a bs argument. They need to cut the crap and just get to doing it. But I'm curious about the new BDEs. Are you saying that these two other BDEs were formed after Zelensky said they would stop? Or were they in the process? He may have stopped the practice but these units had finished, it's not really clear in what you wrote.
He said they should stop forming new units. New units are being formed. It doesn't really matter if they were started after he made that statement or before. They are continuing to be formed when doing so will only weaken the army.
Keep in mind that thousands of soldiers are regularly removed from brigades that are forming. They need to disband these units and move their resources to existing units.
I can explain the idea behind new units. 60 percent of all existing units in Ukrainian army are shiat, they can't hold their own, their old-guard soviet-style officers are horrible, they learn nothing and don't care to learn, they simply waste their men. Sending new men there is a travesty, it's a useless waste. New units created, properly trained - with new officers - old units are destroyed, not reinforced.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was advice from NATO advisers - don't reinforce old bad soviet-tradition units, build a new NATO-type army.
But something, as always, went wrong with those fine plans.
Ok, got it now. Fully agree with you on how this weakens the army. My understanding was that they had ceased forming new units, not just talking about it.
This is a very interesting citation: «The commander of the 108th Separate Battalion “Da Vinci Wolves” went one step further, saying, “The realities of modern warfare and bitter experience show that foreign training without adaptation to Ukrainian conditions and work within the unit is a waste of time and has terrible consequences. Our mechanics, drivers, tankers, artillerymen, grenade launchers and machine gunners should teach NATO how to use weapons, and all we need from partners is maintenance instructions.”» I am not really surprised. Especially now after three years of war and development. While the West may offer basic training like the one outlined above the realities of the war is probably very different than what the western doctrine expects. Maybe the western armies have some specialist training in medics (doubt it is better, but) or logistics or something. But fighting? Likely more to learn from their own experts. But it is a challenge to get that expertise to do the training.
Is there any real evidence that Russia has striked (or has capacity to strike) Ukranian training grounds? How hard can it be to train, say 10-20 thousand recruits a month given Russian capabilities? How hard can it be to expand the scope of military training? Three years into the war, and I don't get why Ukraine (the biggest country in Europe) has to send so many troops abroad to get proper military education.
I have no good answer. But from the point of view of a nation providing such training (Norway) I can tell you that we feel good about providing it. Our local officers and trainers are exited and wants to help. The society is. We feel good they are training in our neck of the woods. Useful. Literally. I am not saying this training is bad, useless or anything like that. But is clearly an effort the trainers like to do, and this may (may) be one of the reasons that Ukraine sends them. Ideally it takes some training burden of them. It might even be relevant, the words from the Da Vinci officer notwithstanding. So, we might be doing something stupid for very good reasons. Nothing new there.
The trainers were sent to the front as officers and NCOs and are kept there as unit backbone.
Last September a Russian missile struck the Poltava Military Institute for Communications and a nearby hospital. Ukraine targeted many Russian training grounds throughout the war.
The first step is to avoid detection. It's easier to do that if the training operation is small and constantly moves locations. While that is fairly easy to do with individual training, it becomes increasingly hard to remain undetected is the size of the training operation increases.
Russia had indeed hit previously Ukrainian training facilities across whole country, even in the west. It is not impossible to evade those strikes, though. There is a wholly different problem: Ukraine has no good military trainers. Training academies and all the remaining military training traditions are Soviet, they are no good at all. There are no trainers capable to train good officers who would be able to train their soldiers.
It would take years to organise new training schools from the ground. And here is the problem: Ukrainian leadership doesn't believe that war will go for years. They are constantly sure that Russia is on the brink of defeat. Hell, people HERE tell me that Russia is going to fall apart in 2025, 2026 at the latest!! So WHY BOTHER with any long-term programs then? It would just be a waste!
Ten years from now they'll still believe that Russia is 6 months from catastrophe and do no long-term planning.
Training for a theoretical confrontation against the Soviet army is a different skill set than fighting in Vietnam, which was happening at the same time. And that is different than fighting an urban guerilla war in Iraq or a guerilla war in the mountains of Afghanistan. On the front lines, each has their own unique properties. Knowing them can decrease the rate of death and increase the rate of killing.
There are still general organizational concepts that applies to all these conflicts.
Basic skills, such as firing weapons and first aid, can be taught anywhere and by allies and Ukrainians. When applying these skills to operations ranging from squad to brigade levels, the training must replicate the fighting as much as possible. And the styles of fighting for both sides have changed several times in three years. That is where Ukraine must be involved in developing and, hopefully, leading the training.
The best units regularly train their personnel that rotate off the front line. It's how skills are retained and refined. It's how they live longer and function more effectively. This needs to be replicated throughout the army. It's completely within Ukraine's capability to do so.
Thank you for this analysis. I think that if I took all the lessons from it and just added a shitload of text (what is ChatGPT for), so each point was a chapter I would clearly have a new management book. Nothing really new there, but that isn’t the point of a management book is it? The point is packaging and marketing?.. leadership the Ukrainian army way… should sell well? Ok, it’s a problem that they are not following the advice. But again that is pretty normal for management theories. Ideas like span of control has been around for a century and people are definitely still ignoring it. Anyway, it’s extremely sad to see your description of how poorly managed the Ukrainian army is. At higher level. But the fish rots from the head?
If a unit has a good leader then eventually the unit will be good.
Thank God someone has finally called out the political BS about the importance of NATO training Ukrainians at the tactical level. Ukrainians should be training NATO in tactics, while it would appear NATO should be advising Ukraine at the organizational level. In fact the situation seems to be rather the opposite.
Ukraine should be training according to their capabilities and the capabilities of their enemy.
NATO should be training according to their capabilities and the capabilities of their enemy.
Thank you so very, very much.
As I am reading through the «Weekly updates» as well as some other blogs about the war in Ukraine I come to some uncomfortable conclusions. The war isn’t going badly enough for Zelenskyy and friends to really change things. I am afraid there is a need, or rather there must be, some serious significant loss on the battlefield that forces them to take action. There are two such catastrophes that can happen. Either the total expulsion from Kursk, or the loss of Pokrorovsk. I think the latter is bound to happen if there are no changes in the infantry operations. Even if drones can and will make this very expensive for Russia we all know that won’t matter. Pyrrhic or not, if they take that city it is a victory. I hope they don’t. Really really. But I also think that without a large «external shock» nothing will happen. We can only hope the shock is big enough.
Neither of those are catastrophes, and both of them will happen eventually. Loss of Pokrovsk and its coal that was so needed for Ukraine is inevitable and it will likely happen sooner than loss of Kursk expansion. After all, Kursk is of no importance for Putin or Russia, and Pokrovsk has actual value.
Neither of those would be real shocks for Ukrainian people or command.
There is only one legal way to change Zelensky, the impeachment procedure in the Parlament. Unfortunately, the President has the majority. Even the legal way is useless. The elections during martial law are forbidden. Denis Shmygal can be the head of Ukraine if Zelensky receives the impeachment.
He is not a president anymore, his term and mandate have expired half a year ago, no need for impeachment to remove a criminal usurper.
Ok, just imagine that you're right! Who is the President of Ukraine now?
You should start with the facts that Zelensky and UA parliament seriously violated constitution when sabotaged the elections which shall not have happend in the democratic country.
The head of parliament of UA shall be as acting president untill new one is elected, like it was accomplished when Yanukovich fled to ruzzia. Read your constitution Inspired defender of UA.
Should I? It's useless talk. I know who you are at the fist sight and what your aim is. I replied just to verify your level of smartness. Olgino or Savushkina Street never changes. Also, I know that Tom catches the Russian attention and you never leave him alone until he stops talking about Ukraine.
Tom, I have one thought and this thought can't leave me. Why were the Russians bombing JSC Motor Sich, but didn't touch the 'Iskra' company? I mean Iskra in Zporizhzhia, which produces many radars, electronic equipment, etc.The distance between the two companies is 3-4 km. I have only one explanation, the Russians spies are working well and aim the missiles precisionly.
Standardising process is the key to any successful organisation.
It will also make training easier to implement.
Process = expected outcomes.