Russia and art of war: What world can learn from the real battles of 21st century in Ukraine

Let’s start with the obvious: Russia today is the only nation in the world with successful experience in leading wars, big and small ones. So, you may like what Russia does, or dislike it, but study that experience anyway.

It’s especially valuable, since today, in Ukraine, we are witnessing a new kind of big war, not like the ones the US were waging in Iraq or Afghanistan. Here we are talking of the first real war of the 21st century, namely, 1. a super-hi-tech one, 2. and, at the same time, a war with an all-important human factor, 3. and, finally, a war which is been fought in information space much more actively than on the physical battlefield.

No, you do not have to be a military expert (I am not one) to know all these things, but, still, my twice-a-week participation in the TV talk shows, which the military experts also attend, really helps.

There was the Russian operation in Syria (September 2015 – March 2016) as a rehearsal to the present-day conflict. It was a success, saving the country from destruction by jihadi forces, it has surprised the world with the massive use of Russian precision weapons, and it has shown us what is an information war. To note, it was a case of Russia’s involvement into a domestic conflict, essentially a civil war, that replicated itself in Ukraine in 2022. Meaning that what goes on in Ukraine today is a repetition of the events in Syria, but on a huge scale.

Some people call the ongoing Ukrainian events “The Battle of Four Armies”. One army is Moscow’s regular troops, another – the forces of two former rebel East Ukrainian republics, now a part of Russia. One is Ukrainian army, another consists of Polish and other European volunteers. But then there is more, the Russian side is also supported by private paramilitary groups, to be mentioned later. It’s an open secret, that the real command of Ukrainian forces is in the hands of British, Polish and American instructors.

The initial idea of the war was about the regular Moscow army playing a supportive role, by paralyzing Ukrainian military might with high-precision strikes, so as to let mostly the Easterners take care of the land operation, get their land to themselves and start living in peace after 8 years of Westerner’s atrocities. That was supposed to be a case of clean and gentlemanly war, with not a single civilian target hit, just as it happened in Syria.

In fact, these aims have already been almost achieved. No army in the world has ever used such an array of precision weapons with such accuracy. As a result, almost all of the Russian-speaking East and South of Ukraine has been taken, but for the two South-West regions along the Black Sea. The guerilla underground there, nevertheless, keeps on preparing for the transition.

A clean and gentlemanly war with no civilian casualties is logical since at least the two armies mentioned are fighting, so far, on friendly land, inhabited by people who regard Russia as their protector. But the problem with this war was, that the other side, Ukrainians, did not regard the same territories as their own. It was the inner enemy’s land for them. Most of Ukraine’s military effort, aided by supplies of long-range weapons from NATO, was about destroying their own former East, especially the civilian targets, so as to provoke the adversary into a suicidal attack on the heavily-fortified line between the warring parts of the former Ukraine.

That, and the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive, now launched and subsequently stalled, pushed Moscow into a change of tactics. Russians are still not hitting civilian targets, but the recent destruction of power stations and lines in Ukraine’s West certainly brings hardships for civilians.

Yet another feature of the 21st-century war, imported by Russia from its Syrian experience, is that the army has to be followed by much more numerous semi-civilian personnel. That’s builders, engineers, volunteers in aid and medicine, as well as security troops. That’s one more army, acting behind the Russian lines. It’s full of Muslim fighters from Chechnya and Syria, paying to Russia the blood debt for saving their lands, as well as thousands of volunteers from Russia as such, coming and going. The cities and villages far from the range of Western artillery are in the process of total rebuilding.

Finally, there is that thing called information war. If there was any doubt that the local Ukrainian war was meant to be turned into a proxy aggression of the West against Russia, the global-scale disinformation campaign against Moscow leaves no doubt about it.

The methods of that war are clear, they presume building up an almost global narrative, bearing no semblance to the real events on the ground. Russia’s Syria-perfected tactics mean zero harm to civilians – so let’s press the point about “atrocities”. Ukrainian troops are the ones who commit these atrocities – tell the people that it’s Russians who do it. The world hates mass destruction weapons – try to fake their use by the Russians, like it was done in Syria before (the infamous Duma “chemical attack”, but on a bigger scale).

It’s worth noting, that in the first week of the war all rather scarce Russian information channels to the outside world have been blocked. So, at least the English-language media space has been dominated by the West. As a result, too many people around the world are hearing something like “Moscow is threatening the use of nuclear weapons”. While in fact, all the leaders of the nation are saying the exact reverse of that – that Russia is not going to use that kind of weapons, while the Kyiv regime is, as we know, is completing its program of using a “dirty bomb” on this or that side of the fighting lines.

Also, there is an information war waged inside Russian society. But that enchanting subject we have to leave for one of the next columns.

The author is a columnist for the Russian State agency website ria.ru, as well as for other publications. Views are personal.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.