Ukraine’s armed forces have been quick to adapt to new methods of warfare, a fact not lost on those watching from the sidelines.
After two decades of counter-insurgency (CT) and counter-terrorism (COIN) campaigns heavily focused in the Middle-East and South-Central Asia, armed forces around the world are closely observing Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia as they consider how to modernise the soldier.
Since Russia’s latest invasion of the country on 24 February 2022 (following its takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014), the conflict has presented a whole raft of lessons learned for conventional units and special operations forces seeking to successfully engage with, and counter, so-called ‘peer or near peer’ adversaries.
This is particularly applicable at the ‘tactical edge’ where the world observes Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) executing very different missions to those conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Social media channels are flooded with ‘point of view’ videos which illustrate, often in graphic detail, the gory return of trench warfare as soldiers close with enemy combatants in scenes more reminiscent of the first and second world wars.
As a result of Russia’s invasion, the European continent remains on high alert as nations ramp up defence expenditure to deter and if necessary, counter any similar offensive action by Russia.
On 29 May, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell highlighted a series of lessons learned from the war in Ukraine which related to the future of European defence.
“With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, conventional, high-intensity land war[fare] has come back to our borders. We have not seen war between nations of such intensity in decades in Europe,” he said in an official statement.
“One of the biggest lessons we can draw from the war, is based on Ukraine’s army’s remarkable ability to adapt successfully while resisting one of the world’s largest armies.”
“One of the biggest lessons we can draw from the war, is based on Ukraine’s army’s remarkable ability to adapt successfully while resisting one of the world’s largest armies. It shows once again how much success on the battlefield depends on motivation, proper training and preparation.
“Only a highly trained cadre of soldiers can carry out combined operations relying on all capabilities, including infantry, artillery and air support.”
In terms of soldier modernisation, the focus of lessons learned from Ukraine has not centred around small arms, body armour and combat helmets – three areas of interest which were fiercely debated over the course of the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead, Borrell highlighted the employment of “innovative and successful” command and control (C2) systems which, he believes, have enabled the UAF to effectively counter Russia’s invading forces.
Discussing future requirements for European armed forces as they seek to upgrade the modern soldier, Borrell suggested EU members should “…further invest in existing or new capabilities to ensure command and control systems that allow rapid assessment of a situation and [reaction] to it”.
Confirming the importance of technology in the ongoing war, Borrell also highlighted the crucial nature of “precision ground-based fire”.
“There is a lot to learn from what we are witnessing in Ukraine and we should keep this in mind as we work on future defence capabilities. While at this stage these lessons can only be considered preliminary, it is clear that the return of high-intensity conflict to Europe requires a change of mind-set. I remain convinced that a joint and coordinated EU approach is the best way to go to achieve more effective, efficient and interoperable military capabilities coherent with NATO,” Borrell concluded.
Similar sentiments were expressed in a February 2023 report on Lessons from Land Warfare: One Year of War in Ukraine, published by the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
Following similar reports published by the UK’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in November 2022, the report highlighted the importance of “gathering and disrupting intelligence; Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR); Command and Control (C2); electronic warfare; and cyber elements”, and also described how “the range and penetration of sensors and weapon systems makes the modern battlefield much deeper and deadlier than before”.
“Static concentrations of people and resources will be attacked. Ukraine has used dispersion and mobility enhanced by camouflage and deception (both physical and electronic) in response. This results in thinly occupied frontlines and continuously moving units behind the front lines. It requires command posts that can act while dispersed and mobile,” the report added.
Defence sources associated with the training and equipping of the UAF, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, also explained to Armada International the critical importance of C2 technology which they said ensured the “rapid passing of intelligence” which would then enable an infantry or special operations team to “strike enemy lines from positions of safety”.
TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT
As the war in Ukraine rages on, NATO members continue to support the UAF, providing a wide range of capabilities which are enhancing the operational effectiveness of mounted and dismounted units on the ground.
Since the war began, the UAF have been recipients of billions of dollars of equipment from across the NATO alliance with particular emphasis given to command, control and communications (C3); anti-tank weapons; unmanned aerial systems (UAS); loitering munitions; mobile artillery pieces; and ground mobility platforms.
On 7 July 2023, the US Department of Defense (DoD) published its latest update on security assistance packages provided to Ukraine since the start of the war. The document confirmed more than 80,000 anti-armour systems and munitions had been supplied in addition to over “35,000 grenade launchers and small arms; over 300 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades; over 100,000 sets of body armour and helmets; tactical secure communications systems and support equipment; and thousands of night vision devices, surveillance systems, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders”.
As defence sources continued to explain to Armada International, none of these capabilities are particularly new to a modern, armed force, perhaps with the exception of loitering munitions – a capability set which is being closely considered by armies around the world.
As Armada went to press, the UAF had received an undisclosed number of Switchblade 300 and 600, Phoenix Ghost and Warmate loitering munitions from US and Polish governments respectively.
Speaking to Armada, co-founder and vice president of Polish defence giant, WB Group, Adam Bartosiewicz and WB America’s chief executive officer, Jim Curtin, described the rapidly evolving nature of modern warfare which is being driven by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Confirming WB Group has been providing assistance to the UAF since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Bartosiewicz said: “Direct contact with the users made us aware of the ‘future war’ quite early and allowed us to factor in that awareness into our R&D cycle to prepare for the challenges that have become common knowledge after only eight years.
“We have learnt that RF [radio frequency] emission is a vulnerability; the ultimate challenge of radio communication is to sustain basic voice communication and not to push video over radio networks; and that GPS reception can become impossible over large areas etc.
“But most of all, we were prepared for a wide proliferation of small and medium size drones to provide observation, targeting, jamming, communication relays as well as hard-kill attacks. That indeed has become the reality of the Ukraine war,” he said.
Command, Control and Communications
In terms of connectivity, Bartosiewicz and Curtin highlighted the importance of C2 and communications (C3) in this new, modern operating environment.
“I would say that the most critical requirement challenges faced as we pivot [from CT/COIN to more conventional combat operations] are the hardest to quantify and implement. Why? Because they are requirements relating to how we assess, analyse, and respond to the nature of today’s threats,” Curtin explained.
“It’s notable that most of the threats faced by the US and its close allies over the past decades have been low-tech, but clever with ad-hoc intelligence operations. However, today the threats are high-tech, devilishly clever and built on very mature, government-sponsored intelligence and dis/mis-information apparatus.
“Today, we return to theatre-wide strategic engagements like we saw in World War II against technologically sophisticated nations conducting strategic operations to achieve victory through acquisition of territory and geopolitical dominance. In the central European theatre of operations, we must use all our resources from the front edge to the back office to assess, analyse and act on real-time information. As a result, information flow within C2 systems must be bi-directional and inclusive of dismounted edge operations as a priority,” he added.
But according to Bartosiewicz, requirements in terms of C3 have changed little as the war in Ukraine continues. “[Requirements] boil down to providing the ‘edge’ over an opponent in terms of information dominance. For our part, we need to assure communication within our formation, continuity of command and overall knowledge about an adversary.
“What has changed however is that all the technology that has been developed during recent decades has become over-dependent on large volumes of data that needs to be pushed and received and therefore on electromagnetic spectrum availability in which we have claimed our dominant position.
“No longer can we take this for granted. Radio emission is a vulnerability the opponent can use to locate, analyse and target. On the first glance, Russia’s technology development in the same period of time concentrated around challenging anything that used radio emissions, at the same time designing their own gear like radios or UAVs to operate in case such challenges are either posed by the enemy.
“We can no longer remain assured that information dominance can alone eliminate the firepower dominance expressed in numbers of gun barrels, missile launchers and the depth of ammunition stocks,” Bartosiewicz continued.
WB’s Topaz Integration Combat Management System (ICMS), currently employed by the UAF, uses narrowband radio networks which, WB Group claims, are better suited to avoiding jamming by adversarial electronic warfare systems in comparison to modern, Wideband radios.
Curtin also described how limited data throughput of narrowband networks made them better suited to supporting mobile applications, where every element of a battalion can manoeuvre and change position at all times in order to avoid targeting by the enemy.
“The level of integration between surveillance, analysis, and prosecution of targets remains constant across all echelons and is a key design differentiator. Other systems on the market rely upon taking multiple application specific subsystems (ATAK [Android Tactical Assault Kit] & AFATDS [Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System] etc) and piecing together a common operating picture into large systems where information can’t easily be scaled across echelon.
“In comparison, TOPAZ-ICMS was designed from original concept to achieve this and allows operators at the very front edge the opportunity to assess and act (within their authority) to resolve problems with full information- not silos of information that can only be understood in a back office using an aggregation system,” Curtin continued.
Loitering Munitions
Another game-changing technology which continues to proliferate across the Ukraine theatre and further afield as countries build up capability, is that of Loitering Munitions (LMs).
“I would say that the most important lesson learned is recognising that utilising LMs against large and sophisticated state actors bears little resemblance to using LM’s against CT/COIN targets,” Curtin warned.
“Deployment of LM’s during the CT/COIN decades were used almost exclusively by dismounted units in very specific tactical engagements (i.e eliminating a single person, or unarmored vehicle). Today, deployment of LM’s is predominantly strategic, in higher volume, and in advance of, or in conjunction with achieving strategic objectives (i.e. infrastructure targets, etc).”
But according to Bartosiewicz , there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution when it comes to LMs supporting small units at the tactical edge. “There are different LMs that perform different tasks. Some can replace a hand grenade; some can conduct reconnaissance missions at extended ranges and then destroy a radar antenna; and some can saturate air defences to deplete adversary missile inventory. There is room for all of them.
“As much as they are more difficult to counter, the smaller they are and the greater their number – they will stay with us – for one reason – they are much cheaper than anything they are intended to destroy and designed to eventually destroy.”
Curtin went onto describe how WB’s family of Warmate products had seen “tremendous success when used as part of a strategic air superiority concept”.
“Imagine that through a simple user interface and nearly silent radio waveform, a munition can be plucked from an ‘airborne toolbox’ to prosecute a target rather than waiting for setup, launch, and transit to a moving target? This is a real game-changer for dismounted operations meaning soldiers don’t need to carry a munition around. Instead, they can just pull one from the airborne toolbox.
“While there is still a need for small, tactical, dismounted engagements with man-packable loitering munitions, it’s my belief that more large scale, strategic, long endurance engagements will become the norm,” he concluded.
CONCLUSION
Soldier modernisation of course, isn’t restricted to the European theatre and armed forces around the world will be observing lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
However, many lessons will also be transferrable to other theatres around the world, including the Indo-Pacific where countries are faced with countering a very different peer adversary. Similarly, lessons learned in this area of the world can also be applied to Europe.
Wherever units might find themselves operating, secure and assured levels in connectivity will be critical to mission success moving forward, as well as seamless and near real-time C2 and the integration of rapidly deployed and easily operated semi-autonomous platforms on land, in the air and at sea.
by Andrew White
