Interpretarea modului rusesc de a duce războiul – analiză comparativă între operațiunile militare sovietice și Faza I a operațiunilor rusești în Ucraina –

Abstract

The following paper provides a comparative analysis of Soviet military operations in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and Phase I Russian operations in Ukraine. The principal object of analysis is the employment of military force within the Soviet and later Russian military operational art outside of large-scale doctrinal conventional warfare. The principal thesis of the paper revolves around providing adequate evidence for two core postulations – the Soviet and later Russian militaries have historically relied in the case of escalation and use of conventional military force on the “military operation” as a method to utilise said military force in a low-intensity, non-kinetic approach where large-scale conventional land forces, in combination with airborne and special forces, would rapidly overwhelm an adversary’s military and civilian capabilities to offer resistance; first-phase Russian operations in Ukraine in 2022 followed the provided historical model, encompassing all elements and methods previously employed, but were unable to repeat Soviet successes, failing due to a variety of factors, which had previously worked in favour of the Soviet military, but were not sufficiently present or counteracted. The paper conducts a comparative analysis by synthesising the key elements, which make up the matrix of a given “military operation” – political goals, military objectives, preparation and execution, and applies them in each of the three case studies – Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and Ukraine. By analysing each of these elements, the paper provides proof of the identical approaches used by the Soviet/Russian militaries and also its subsequent conclusions on the inability of the Russian military to achieve success in Ukraine.