Reforms stalled, infantry hemorrhaging
Corps catastrophe? Military purges. Rewards for general soldier-wasters. Azov angry. Syrsky's micromanagement of Dobropillia.
There is no end to talk of Russian ‘zombie assaults’ against Ukraine’s steeled warriors for Evropa. But if you read Ukrainian soldiers themselves, they have quite a bit of jealousy for the organizational innovations of the ‘orcs’. This is from one of Ukraine’s most popular military bloggers, Officer:
Hexacopters, by the way, are heavy drones (‘heavy bombers’) designed to drop agricultural fertilizer, which are now repurposed to drop explosive loads of over 100 kilograms. I wrote about them back here.
So why is Officer calling on the Ukrainian army to copy the ‘progressive’ Russian approaches? What happened to the Ukrainian army’s Corps reform, announced at the start of the year?
It was meant to revolutionize the army’s organizational structure for the better, allowing Corps commanders to ensure that all units under their control apply the most effective techniques and coordinate properly between one another.
I’ve written several articles on the lackluster results of the corps reform. One in early July, one in late July.
The Ukrainian military analysts there identified several problems.
To begin with, it seems that few corps have even been organized.
Second, the corps that do exist seem to simply be reproducing the old patterns of military disorganization. The aim of the reform was for each corps to stay permanently with the same units in order to increase the responsibility of higher-level corps commanders towards their personnel.
Instead, just like the Operational-Tactical/Strategic Groupings they were meant to replace, corps cycle through random units that they ‘attach’ to themselves. Once they ‘run out’ of men in one unit, they attach a new one. Hence, the corps have not solved Ukraine’s main problem - indifferent expenditure of its most precious and finite resource, human manpower.
Third, commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky does not seem enthusiastic about the idea of lowering losses. After all, he is nicknamed ‘the Butcher’ (with regard to his own troops, not the enemy). This is evidenced both by his launching of the Kursk misadventure in 2024 and his recent creation of the assault forces.
As I wrote last week, this new branch of the army is described by BBC Ukraine as ‘Syrsky’s personal guard’. They are willing to take any losses, as long as half of a village with a pre-war population of ten potatoes was temporarily retaken.
All three of these issues will be discussed by today’s analysts.
We will also see how the stalled corps reform has negatively impacted Azov’s attempts to counter Russian advances near Dobropilia. Or is that just an attempt by the pro-Azov liberal press to shift the blame onto ‘Soviet general’ Syrsky? I’ll leave my attentive readers to decide.
Another topic of today’s article is Syrsky’s military purges. Instead of successfully reforming the army, he has preferred to micro-manage key sections of the front and demote a highly popular ‘war-fighter’ general, interpreted by many as a sign of jealous competition.
Azovites aren’t impressed. We’ll see how the west’s favorite neo-nazis are raging about Syrsky’s unique method of punishing generals who needlessly sacrifice their own men - by moving them to another similar position.
Finally, we’ll take a look at the latest revelations on the criminal past of the men that Syrsky chose to lead his assault forces. Besides their enthusiastic sacrifice of men for questionable aims, the new branch of the army is run by a man who was wanted by Interpol and local law enforcement for fraud, embezzlement, forgery, and armed robbery.
