Yurii Butusov’s interview with Alminas Sinevicius: "Kursk operation is a successful story at tactical level, but it caused difficulties at strategic level"
The nature of armed conflict in the world is changing and will continue to do so. Therefore, NATO should prepare for the dangers of the future, not the past. The same applies to Ukraine, which must improve its strategic planning in the face of an ongoing war to pave the way for victory.
This opinion was expressed by Censor.NET editor-in-chief Yurii Butusov in the podcast "Locked N' Loaded: Patrulio Bazė" by Lithuanian officer Alminas Sinevičius. The day before, Butusov visited Vilnius at the invitation of Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurinas Kasciunas and took part in the conference "Defending the Baltic: Lessons from the War in Ukraine".
Currently, Lithuania is making efforts to improve its management and is lobbying for the creation of a division in its army, which, unfortunately, Ukraine is not doing.
-Hello, Yurii, thank you for coming.
-Hello, Major. Honour for me.
- So we will go ahead, I have some questions, but we will go through all three levels, strategic, operational, and tactical. But we will start not from tactical, but from strategic level. So first question, let's talk about Western support, Western country support.The problem is that announcements, all that is made, a lot of, but even for the small amount of the, you know, support, promised weaponry or technique, it takes months or even years that it, after the announcement, to come to Ukraine, to the front lines. And we say, we have a story with the tanks, with Abrams and Leopards, then we have a story with the F-16s. So delay is like huge for some weapons.So how West should change this mechanism of supporting Ukraine? Is it just giving more shells and weaponry is the only issue, or there is more about the support from the West countries?
-The biggest problem of Western countries, they are not consolidated, and they don't have common strategy in this war. And in general, in the world. We don't understand what the role of NATO means in world security and Europe security.And they provoke many media political effects, but it's a lack of actions. It's a problem of NATO countries, and unfortunately we understand that it depends on many, many factors. And they don't feel, and they don't understand the danger of Russia.They can't understand that they provoke Russia, they provoke China to make more pressure by military measures, cause they see how weak are Western countries, how ineffective in support somebody. Their lack of force provoke new aggressions and provoke escalation of aggression. And we see how to do, how can do it.We can see on Middle East nowadays.
-You mean Israel and...
- Israel, but you can see the construction of this conflict. No countries against Israel directly.
Only autonomous terrorist organisations. No countries. They fight...
-Proxies.
-Proxies. The proxies fight against the state. Why is it possible? Because the nature of the war, the nature of conflicts is changed, and it will change in the future.
And NATO is very conservative structure, and they still preparing to the dangers of the past. The structure of NATO decisions, decision-making, it's a structure and the practise of 50 years old.
- So you're saying that NATO is preparing for the previous wars?
-For previous wars, yes.Not for the future. And we can see, you can produce, you can see the future. Now all countries, all aggressive countries, they see how to attack, how to invade other country.The model is clear. Look at Russia, look at the Middle East, and look at Taiwan. And very clear model.And all the world, they see that NATO and nobody else, they can't react effectively.
-What Ukrainian political-military leadership should do to improve strategic planning in the ongoing war, you know, and to the path, to make a path to the victory? What you see the main, well, things to improve?
-For improve somebody, you have to build the system. The principal weakness of Ukraine is that we are very fragmented, like the country and like the state. The war united us like a nation, but we are still fragmented, like state on the level of state institutions. And we don't have the practise of system reaction. And we have many innovations, but we can't to scale it and global on all frontline. We have best innovation in some units with great practise, who can control frontline, who can beat Russians, but we can't to scale this practical, successful experience to all frontline. It's the biggest problem for us, because for to scale, you need very flexible and effective institutions. You have to commanders of all level, and the first on highest level, who are confident in support of political, on the political level, who has support in his decisions, and he can do very fast without long conversations.
And we have the problem, cause when we try to do something, it's only talking. And we have the gap between strategic level of plans, of strategic decisions, and practical level, tactical level, who are making the war, and they control this frontline. And we have this gap, we know war history. In many countries, we see the same gap during the war in the history. But nowadays, we feel on ourselves, what does it mean? Many losses, many defeats, and if you can't accelerate, if you can't to accelerate on your enemy, unfortunately, it will not miracle. Unfortunately, you will can't stop them. It's problem.
- We already go to the operational level, that's fine. And so, for example, you touched a little bit about the structure, that not the structure, but the whole overview from that, there is a big gap between strategic and tactical level, like I understand.So what is your opinion on the structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Because there is still some brigades which is not affiliated or don't have any division level. They are like operating by themselves, and directly commanded by the higher headquarters. So maybe it's giving some flexibility to have brigades without directly supported by the higher headquarters, not division level.
-No, unfortunately, it's inertion, the first problem. The first problem of Ukraine, it's a lack of strategy. We can't formulate what does it mean the strategy, how to achieve the advantage on the enemy, how to destroy, how to beat them the most effective way. And we conserve the inertion of mind, inertion of perception of the war by all standards. But modern war is changed every month. And we are, and unfortunately, for to be modern, for to keep advantage, you have to change your own mind, and you have to change the system of orders, system of battle manuals.
You have to change your battle orders, the first. And if you want to win, you can formulate it in your strategy. And if you want to win, you could organise yourself, and you need divisions, you need corps, the first, because division and corps, it's highest level, not structure, it's highest level of responsibility.During the war, you need to be faster. If you want to react faster, you have to concentrate responsibility on some person who has confidence. And if you don't have effective confidence level of generals for control armies, control divisions, control corps, yes, it's very flexible level to operate with brigades, but you can't coordinate brigades.We have some example that our improvised operative staff, they command over 22 brigades, 22 brigades, and about 50…
-Under one command?
-Under one command, 22 brigades, and about 50 small independence units, battalion companies in one temporarily staff, in one improvised temporarily staff. It's terrible, it's impossible, but we do it.It's not, unfortunately, it's not flexibility. It's about the chaos. Yes, we started the war with brigade level.We have only 25 brigades of land forces for all our country. Yes, and we use brigade level because we don't have other level. But after mobilisation, we organised now about more than 100 brigades.And some 100 independent small battalions, small units, and we need more effective structure for command and to organise it, to coordinate. And it's impossible to coordinate so many units.
-Because in NATO, I think the standard is like four or five units, like subunits to command.
-Yeah.
-But it's about the lack of professional personnel…
-It's not about NATO, it's about simple logic.
-Yes, yes, I agree, I agree with that.But you know, so why is that? Because there is no professional officers or like that level, you know, to form up between the higher headquarter and the brigade to form up a division, at least headquarter, you know, with the, so what's the problem? Why is so that?
-Every big system, even bad system, even chaotic system, it's a system. And the system has his own conservative conditions, conservative principles, and his own inertion. And for to change it, you need to prepare. You have to be ready to these dangers. You have to be, to plan the changes on strategic level. And it's a responsibility of our political staff.
But our political staff is under pressure of many, many obstacles, of many, many dangers. And they don't have such experience. And it's, we have the paradox situation that we have government of peacekeepers, peacemakers, and they have to fight. They are not ready to this task, unfortunately. It's a problem of our society of political situation in Ukrainian society is the first.
-You a little bit touched the mobilisation.So what's your opinion on the mobilisation productiveness, its effectiveness in Ukraine?
-It's ineffective because we don't have structure for all big things..
-Again structure!
-Again structure. We are fragmented. We can't to scale our innovations. As a start of the war, we have self-mobilisation of the most motivated part of society. It was self-mobilisation, with self-supply, with self-decision, not organised in general. And we don't have, the first, we don't have state register of all citizens, the register for conscripts.
-The database.
-Database, we don't have database. We don't know how many citizens we have now, right now in Ukraine for to fight and not only to fight. Why we, what is the sense of mobilisation? For (us) to understand what resources do you have? Resources not only for frontline, not only for to fight and dug out. We need, we have to know resources for our infrastructure. We have to know resources for our military industry. We have to mobilise to military industry, not less than to frontline. Because soldiers, they need more than technology weapon. They need supply, they need power supply in modern war of drones. We need many machines and many techniques. And for produce it, you have to know how many resources, engineers, workers, you have to mobilise to your industry. And we don't know about it. It's chaotic process too, unfortunately. For us, mobilisation, it's only mobilisation for infantry. Cause it's very chaotic process. Our military, in our recruit centres, they catch the people on the street. They catch the people, but our government, our parliament, they can't to realise very simple task. State register of citizens. We don't have state register. It's a biggest, biggest mistake with the very, very big weakness of our power and ineffective of our power. And it's a topic for critics.
-What about the air defence and anti-missile defence? How actually works Ukrainian air defence and electronic warfare, of course, fighting or defending from Shahed drones, from missiles that every day hits the Ukrainian cities.
- I don't think that we have to analyse it openly. It's impossible to analyse the structure of the system. I want to say that for this war, we have to organise and we have to produce more drone interceptors. New technologies, they give us a chance to modernise all levels of our warfare. We need more drones for every type of units, for every level, and for air defence too. It's the biggest danger for us to try to defence of drones with only rockets.We have to opposite drones with drones. We have to produce and to use more drones than Russians can produce. And we have to beat them first on industry.It's the biggest problem for us. We need resources, we need investments, we need the first money. Not only weapons, not only rockets.We need money to accelerate them in drone technologies.
-Let's go to the tactical level. In your opinion, what is the dynamics of the battlefield at the moment? And what results could we expect until the end of the year, this year? Well, if we look into the tactical on the front line.
-On the front line, we see that combats are more intensive every month. It's not intensive of deep strikes. It's not intensive of big flashes on the map.It's intensive on the front line. Intensive of... we see the high level of intensity on the level of small group of infantry on the zero position. And more drones every month hunt to our guys.More drones, more high precision weapons. And they're more dangerous in every part of front line. And to opposite it, these dangers we need to produce and to use more our own drones.We have to build our defence only on drone and land drones, air drones, on sensors. We have to fight with machines, not with men with rifles.
-Do you think that Russians will still advance in a slow tempo like they do now in some parts of the front line?
-If we will not change our tactics and organisations, yes, they will still go ahead. Yes, they can't do it fast. They have numerous losses. It's very hard task for Russia. But they have advantage in the model of infantry war. In the model of infantry war they have advantage. And for to win them, for to beat them, we have to realise the model of technological war.
-Because the resource, the manpower... well, they have the manpower. They have more they can bring to...
-It's a very bad competition to compare the losses of the people. We can beat them with drones.
-With the technologies.
-With technologies. We need technologies, we need combination, we need coordination between many technologies.Not only the drone technologies. But it's possible. We have to realise our potential in intellect.We have to realise our potential of our society. Not only quantity of personnel.
-We already talked about the brigade level.So in those brigades there is a lot of success stories. They are successful in the battlefield. Well, a lot form up brigades even after 2022.So what are the success stories of most of the brigades that are, for example, in Kursk or in Donetsk districts? Commanders, soldiers or some weaponry? Maybe tactics? I don't know. What you can see and share when we see those examples of some brigades?
-We have many examples. We control nowadays this front line only in every part of this front line we have commanders and soldiers who can achieve the advantage on the enemy.
Сause Russians have advantage in 20-30 times by military potential right now. At the start of the war it was 40-60 times.
-So going down, that's good!
-Yeah, going down. Yeah, cause we were not ready. Now we are mobilised.But they still have advantage, big advantage. If you see this very thin blue line, it's a line of many successful stories. It's... I can't say about especially one story or two stories.It's a very, very common story of Ukrainian army and Ukrainian people.
-So, Yurii, which is your favourite brigade from Ukrainian Armed Forces?
-I can't say. It's impossible because during these 10 years of war I have a lot of friends in many, many brigades. We have very effective organised brigades with very effective commanders, yes. We have very good organised battalions included in some brigades. We have small teams included in brigades or battalions. Because there are a lot of very effective warriors, very effective organisations. They have their own story of their own victories. And it's impossible to, in some words, to say especially about one story.
-I just was provoking you. I know, I know. So, Yurii, last question, but maybe most trending question.So, the Kursk operation. What is your opinion, what is your thoughts on this operation? It's good, advantages, disadvantages. What do you see from your perspective?
-It's a very brilliant, successful story for tactical and operational level. You have to beat your enemy surprisingly. But on the strategic level, this operation provoked some problems on the front line. You can dictate, if we see, if you watch on military history, you can dictate initiative if you can stop your enemy in somewhere and you can surprisingly advance in other place. We have the problem because we didn't stabilise our defence on Donetsk region and started attack. I like this operation on the operational and tactical level, but it's a very big problem and a very big mistake of our high commanders. They can't organise the defence. Unfortunately, we don't have strategical defence. For organised defence, it's not the problem of reserves. It's not the problem of troops. It's a problem of organisation. If you take some best brigades for attack somewhere, it's possible. It's possible way, it's a good way. Not a problem. But you have to organise strategic defence because you are using your reserves in other place. You can't counterattack on the offensive on your enemy.
-So you're saying about the defence lines, like in the depth and all the logistics and locations?
- Yes, it's a problem of organisation, not of the quality or quantity of your troops. We have enough troops to stop Russian. We have enough troops to beat them.But we need to support them. We need to support it with the first tactical and strategical level decisions for using very effective. If you have a lack of infantry, it's not a problem.But you have to compensate it. You have to compensate it with more artillery shells, with more drones, and we can do it. But for effective use of your drones, of your artillery, you have to clean kill zone.And you have to watch on enemy, you have to watch on storm groups of Russians and to kill them. You have to organise this process of destruction. And you need new organisation forms, new battle orders in defence.And we have to change our principles of fighting. We can't to attack and counterattack of Russian storm troops. We have to stop them and to kill them systematically.Every day, day by day, day by day, they have to see that they can't to break our front line. And we have to stop the first, and after that we can stop them, we can attack them.
-That's the logic, fix the enemy and then attack them.
-But we started our offensive without fixing the enemy on Donbas. It's a problem. Could we stop them right now? Yes, we can do it.But we have to change something in our strategy level, operational level and tactical level.
-But maybe the political or the military strategical level in Ukraine, they thought that it will stop eventually. They assumed that the operation in Kursk will stop the approaching of Russians in such a way like they did before the Kursk operation.But yeah, just my thoughts. Okay, thank you, Yurii. That was my last question.I'm very thankful to have a chat with you. I definitely will remember it for a long time. Thank you.
-Thank you, it's an honour for me.
-Thank you.
