Book Review: Operational Level Lessons from Ukraine

Tactical and Strategic Insights from the Russo-Ukrainian War: Western Security and Defence in the 21st Century, Thomas-Durell Young and Jarosław Gryz, editors, Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2025, 287 pages, ISBN 9781804131558.

Tactical and Strategic Insights from the Russo–Ukrainian War offers a very wide-ranging analysis of the ongoing operations in the country. As with any book dealing with contemporaneous situations, things can shift significantly between the time of research and authorship and the date published. Nevertheless, the analysis in this volume remains very useful for those studying the conflict. One significant strength of the book is that many of the contributors are from what are now ‘frontline states’, and they offer a somewhat different perspective on how to view developments in the war.

Krisztián Jójárt opens the topics by discussing Russian military theory and its impact on the initial phases of the invasion of Ukraine. He stresses that the course of the war has been far different from what Russian military science would have predicted: “Human wave attacks and the preparation of extensive fortifications were not what most of them imagined as being attributes of a future war” (p. 9). Jójárt argues that “Russian military thinkers have written extensively about the significance of the indirect approach, asymmetric methods, and non-military means in warfare, concluding that an indirect strategy will be the dominant form of war” (p. 13).

The discussion of Russian military theory and its connection with the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine is useful, but there are two issues that arise with some of the Western analysis. First, there certainly has been a clear (if circumscribed) intellectual ferment within the Russian military on new forms of warfare, much of which followed a similar movement in Western militaries. Western discussion on Russian military theory is based largely on the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine, named after Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, and based on an article he wrote in 2016. It is important to note that much of this article focuses on defending against Western use of ‘new’ forms of warfare. Likewise, there is little evidence that it has become anywhere near being adopted as a formal doctrine. Viewed more broadly – and in many ways as applicable to the US military as to Russia – converting a doctrine to a usable operational strategy can be very difficult.

Zsolt Lazar offers an interesting chapter on how to use open-source material to assess the course of the war. His focus is as much on process as it is on the results of the analysis. He describes two main tools. The first is NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), useful for detecting ‘hot spots’ indicating military activity. The second is data from the Oryx website that provides detailed open-source imagery. He notes that “Forbes lauded Oryx as ‘the most reliable source in the conflict’, setting the gold standard for estimating equipment losses by reporting only visually confirmed losses.” (p. 37) Lazar then provides a detailed description of how these tools were used to create data sets, giving near-real-time results. Perhaps the major usefulness of this chapter is its demonstration that available open-source material can be leveraged to create useful analysis. This certainly is applicable not only to academic approaches such as this book, but also to governments. Smaller countries that do not have the collection resources of major powers increasingly have the ability to tap into resources that can give them a more accurate intelligence picture.

The remainder of the book offers an analysis of specific aspects of the ongoing war. All the chapters are useful, but several stand out for addressing issues that often can be overlooked. In his chapter, “Battlefield Communications in the Russo–Ukraine War: The First Six Months”, Glen Grant notes that “There is little or no standardisation amongst them [the various Ukrainian security forces] in training, or communications, and virtually no connectivity between them.” (p. 59) In part, this was due to the communications architecture, with the communications system focused on higher to lower echelons, with very limited thought given to lateral communications. More significantly, the communications equipment was woefully inadequate. Some units – particularly those that had received foreign military support – entered the war well equipped, but the majority had to make do with what they could find. This, of course, was complicated by the (partial) incorporation of volunteer battalions that had come equipped with whatever they could buy or receive as donations from civilian groups.

Even within regular units, there has been a plethora of communications systems, including Harris radios and the ubiquitous Motorola handheld radios. In many cases, these are incompatible with other radios and are frequently unencrypted. Even in these cases, Motorolas sold out and units had to scramble to buy even more inferior radios (p. 64). What, in many ways, became the fallback position for soldiers were mobile phones and secure apps; the latter remained possible because the Ukrainian civilian workers generally have managed to keep the internet operating. As Grant notes, the Starlink system “came literally as a lifesaver to the Ukrainian forces, allowing stronger communications where radio coverage and range were simply inadequate” (p. 67). This is a very accurate description, but relying on a backbone communications system whose availability depends on the vagaries of a single person can be uncomfortable. Perhaps the key takeaway from Grant’s discussion is that countries that rely on mass mobilization for their defense must plan their communications architecture around a much larger force than usual, adequately resource this system in advance of mobilization, and train their personnel before conflicts emerge.

Zhirayr Amirkhanyan in “Operational Fires: Lessons Observed” argues that “artillery is back in its historical place as the primary combat effect on the battlefield” (p. 99). Although such precision munitions such as Excalibur rounds, HIMARS, and MLRS have proven their value, ‘dumb’ munitions continue to be critical. He cites a senior adviser to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as claiming that “’anti-tank missiles slowed the Russians down, but what killed them was our artillery. That was what broke their units.’” (p. 105-106). The Russians typically have continued to use massed artillery (albeit at further range), at the tactical and operational level, but the Ukrainian forces have found that using one or two artillery pieces that can be redeployed quickly has been successful. One issue the Ukrainians have faced has been keeping their artillery pieces operational; their rate of fire has been so extensive that “over a third of Ukraine’s artillery systems are unavailable due to maintenance and repair needs” (p. 104).

This chapter also provides a very useful and detailed description of the various targeting systems the Ukrainians have modified for their use, along with some “homegrown” systems. One particularly novel approach has been “[a] mobile phone application developed by Ukrainians, which operates alongside Google Meet, allows citizens to report the presence of Russian troops, either through the chain of command or directly to artillery units. Subsequently, this data is shared with NATO partners, whose satellites and other assets provide more precise targeting information” (p. 108). Such an approach that, in some ways, can be akin to civilians acting as forward observers clearly can come with problems, but other countries that facing the prospect of “total war” might find it of interest.

Roman Kolodii concludes that “the technical features of cyber-space as an operational domain did not decisively shape the Russo–Ukrainian cyber-war… These findings have important implications for our understanding of cyberwar, as they seem to validate the standpoint of cyber-war sceptics who doubt cyber-warfare’s decidedly disastrous potential” (p. 175-176). The chapter by Marlena Zadorożna focuses specifically on information operations. Although space does not permit a detailed review, other chapters on logistics, urban operations, the conduct of the air campaign, and naval operations also provide very valuable insights.

It might be surprising to some that the use of UAVs in the war is not given great prominence in the book, although their use is mentioned in a supporting role in several chapters. In some ways, this is an advantage for the analysis provided by the authors. UAVs have been given extensive coverage, and in some ways have drowned out other critical lessons from the war. The contributors to this volume have raised critical issues surrounding the Ukraine campaign to date. This book should provide considerable value to defense planners in what are now front-line states and those responsible for training and advising them.