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The "Russians defending in front of their defenses" myth. [1]

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Date: 2023-08-16

Hi’.

This (Daily Kos). And this (idem). There is this prevailing narrative that Russia is dumb because it is fighting “in front of prepared defenses” and I just don’t get it.

To be clear I am as armchair general as it gets, not only civilian but Swiss on top with only a barebone understanding of military theory from Sur le Champ (Youtube, in French). And so what will follow is not expertise by any stretch of the imagination but my perspective on what I see as a myth.

To be equally clear, what is meant by that myth is that (i) Russia spent months building “fortifications”, with toblerones (tank obstacles) and tank ditches, bunkers and whatnot along with continuous trenches; and (ii) Russia is spending months fighting in front of said fortifications. The combination (i-ii) is what’s considered stupid.

So here is my amateurish take on this.

1. A historical take

As far as history is concerned, fighting in front of prepared defenses is the norm. Back in the medieval (or even antiquity) days that was called sorties/sallies, aka fighting in front of high walls and towers to harass and disrupt your enemy’s siege.

An anecdote, on history: the 18th century had a dispute on temporary fortifications for armies on the field, for example at Malplaquet (1709) or in the Roussillon (1794-5): they couldn’t choose between continuous trenches or strongpoints. Yes, two centuries before the Great War. It’s irrelevant but it blew my mind when I heard about it. (Strongpoints seemed to have won.)

Then comes 1916’s Hindenburg line.

Movies on WW1 convey this image of impervious trenches, pointless artillery barrages and suicidal charges. The reality was far more complex and one thing that came back time and again was how the first trench line would get obliterated by heavy artillery: at second Champagne (1915) or the opening of Verdun (1916) all the way to the spring offensive of 1918, you have stories of men buried alive and battalions vanishing. And yes that depiction is a caricature too, as said reality is complex...

The answer to that million shells flattening your defense was “defense-in-depth”, and it was described to me thus: three lines (a-b-c) with line (a) to absorb the artillery/attack and retreat; (b) as a kill zone to actually stop the enemy and (c) a rear with artillery and reserves. The idea was to exhaust the enemy in (a) then counter-attack from (c) to retake whatever was lost. Emphasis on counter-attack: if you couldn’t retake the lost ground, the whole defense network would slowly degrade until (b) became (a) and would get flattened. Attacking in front of (b) was mandatory.

I have no idea how defenses were waged in WW2 (no, seriously, I don’t even understand the Maginot line, let alone German or Russian trenches), nor in the Korean or Vietnam wars and basically the last half-century is a historical black box to me.

But as far as history is concerned, (ii) is routine.

2. A Ukrainian take

Now let’s see how Ukraine defends.

From mid-April (roughly) to about August 2022, we were fed a narrative of stubborn static defenses and to sum it all up is the defense of Popasna (MarkSumner, Twitter, cited for example here on the Daily Kos): Ukrainian bunkers murdering everything that comes and Russia only advancing at the speed of artillery. Now it has been a year and I assume it was a Tweet from wherever, so I can’t find it for you but when Popasna fell, I actually read it was being flanked by VDVs; and that should sound familiar to you because it is the flanking of Soledar that precipitated an advance all the way to Berkhivka and the eventual fall of Bakhmut. (They also tried to flank Vuhledar, with far less success.)

This to say that we have a strong image of Ukrainian defenses unmoved, and when Ukraine retreated from Lysychansk to the Siversk-Bakhmut(-Toretsk) defense line I interpreted their fighting at Spirne or Bilohorivka, etc. as a “fighting retreat”, the same way they had retreated from the north of the Siverskyi Donets river prior to Severodonetsk. But wherever Ukraine could hold it would, and in front of Siversk a ~6km deep “buffer zone” appeared, a back-and-forth with plenty of Ukrainian counter-attacks.

Bakhmut made it exponentially clearer how the Ukrainian defense actually worked. They would hold positions beyond what looked, from the outside, reasonable, whether at Soledar (where armor didn’t dare enter, Urozhaine much?) or prior to that at Pisky (where a journalist reported on the attrition). They would counter-attack time and again (Mark Sumner constantly mocked the Russians being pushed back from prior gains), especially in the city itself akin to what they had done in Severodonetsk. And all throughout Kos would ask why they didn’t retreat to the hills, just like he had asked why they hadn’t retreated to Lysychansk.

The most recent Ukrainian defense is in Luhansk where, predictably, they offered a fighting retreat up to a line that they held before… counter-attacking to retake their old positions (Reporting from Ukraine, Youtube). This is why when Russia reached Torske I basically shrugged: it’s just what they do.

And yes, that means Ukraine is more prone to retreat from positions but when they hold, they hold with the same passion as Russians in Lyman, Robotyne or Urozhaine. And anecdotically they broke Robotyne or Staromaiorske… by flanking it (and no, they also took trenches head-on in the north).

Maybe what we call “stupid” is just how it works.

Just saying.

As for why Ukraine is more prone to give up ground, we can speculate.

3. A theoretical take

All I have discussed so far is (ii), that everyone in this war and throughout history fights “in front of prepared defenses”. But the counter to that is (i): Ukraine didn’t spend months preparing mighty fortifications at Siversk-Bakhmut or on the Luhansk front.

Okay… so let’s discuss (i).

Say you go back in time and take command of the Russian front in Zaporizhzhia, and you order a “fighting retreat” to your mighty fortifications. What do you expect would happen? Well, without reinforcements nor counter-attacks to disrupt their efforts, the Ukrainians advance far more rapidly and by now they are knocking at your formidable line. Yeah, drones and spotters alone were never going to be enough to prevent mine-clearing and you gave up on the roads themselves so… you just wasted kilometers-deep minefields along with several strongpoints and their complex network of trenches. Now your fortifications are at mortar reach and your rear that much closer to Ukrainian artillery and you traded all of that for… a tank ditch and ~2-400m of mines at best.

Continuous trenches don’t have a +10 DEF buff.

No but seriously, have you heard of Sihurivka? The frustrating Russian fortress during the Kherson campaign that, just, would, not, fall, and to the best of my knowledge it had no tank ditch. And if you want to survive the artillery, the NYT is full of stories of Russians doing just that in basements… like at Staromaiorske.

So let me offer an hypothesis: those famed fortifications are irrelevant by themselves. Not worthless, I mean it’s still trenches and whatnot, but they are not going to fare much better than any other defense throughout this war. Instead, those fortifications should be seen as part of a much larger defense network within which their function is to prevent flanking or a rout. This is not the “zero line” where Russia intends to fight, this is the rearward limit of where Russia intends to fight (at least for this line of defense). Their defenses are exactly where they are fighting right now.

Meaning that not only is it not stupid to fight in front of prepared defenses but Russia is not even doing that: they are well within said prepared defenses.

Just, they are forced to constantly reinforce and counter-attack. Just like Ukraine is forced to. Not to simplify or deride but miracle bunkers are fairy tales, as Pisky experienced.

And so why is Ukraine more prone to fall back?

Well one possibility is that Ukraine is used to overwhelming enemy artillery and so their “doctrine”, in practice, calls for that flexibility. Maybe Russia still hasn’t faced the fact that their artillery is seriously diminished, and so they still operate under a false assumption.

Another possibility is that Russia doesn’t have that capability. Because a retreat is a manoeuver, it requires training, coordination, discipline. I don’t actually know what a retreat entails but you need to know where to go, to inform other units of your manoeuver, to keep unit cohesion and screen your movement, etc. It’s hard, risky and if your army is mostly made up of ill-trained troops with let’s say a temperament, a fall back might simply not be an option.

(That Russia was able to… faaaairly cleanly retreat from Kherson was a prowess, let’s give them that.)

Yet another possibility is simply that Russia doesn’t see it that way. For example, take Urozhaine, it made no sense: an exposed salient with its only road threatened, anyone would have retreated. But as I said elsewhere, in this war both Russians and Ukrainians seem to assess the risk differently than us (hi Lysychansk, Bakhmut). Russia probably looked at this and thought their eastern flank was still secure enough, with the western flank protected by the river. And so they held to that position. Why? Because it was fortified and because they needed it to counter-attack and retake Staromaiorske. Because yes, Russia is fighting to win, it is waiting for Ukrainian exhaustion and expecting to push back.

The point I’m trying to make is Russia is full of vranyo (lies) but not stupid.

4. Conclusion

Russia is not stupid. What they are doing right now is the most efficient and pragmatic way to defend their landbridge.

It just so happens to be insufficient.

Russia needs artillery for that defense and is losing the duel; Russia needs reserves for mobile defense (reinforcements, counter-attacks, etc.) and is getting them wrecked, and has no choice but to get them wrecked because it needs to send them in there. Every place they lose they cannot retake yet they have no choice but to try. And yes, Russia can be suicidal, from river crossings to Vuhledar not because their doctrine/tactic is bad per se but because their military tool is broken beyond belief. This is the best they can do with what they have.

They are not stupid, they are just hoping that Ukraine will get exhausted first and in the meantime, this stubborn defense is their best option.

So that’s how I read the situation.

And if anyone with a better understanding can correct me I wouldn’t mind, especially if it comes with an explanation as to how a retreat actually works.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/16/2187483/-The-Russians-defending-in-front-of-their-defenses-myth

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