Putin's war machine

A military operation that was to last 10 days is now closing in on a year. Mark Galeotti's rigorous book offers a real-time understanding of the Russian operation's catastrophic failure in Ukraine

Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine

Author: Mark Galeotti

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 384

Price: Rs 999

If you want a better understanding of why Russia, with an armed force of 1.5 million people, has been unable to overrun Ukraine with a military of just 500,000, Putin’s Wars is a useful read. It offers a deep dive into the innards of the Russian military organisation and strategy from the last days of the Soviet Union to the “special military operation” against Ukraine that was supposed to last 10 days and is now closing in on a year.

The author Mark Galeotti is a Russian security expert. The manuscript to this book was ready as the Ukraine war began, but the enormity of the event made it difficult to ignore. Accordingly, the manuscript was edited to accommodate this development and a chapter added to reflect the situation as of June 2022 (ominously titled “Ukraine 2022: Putin’s Last War?”). This adds a real-time understanding of Vladimir Putin’s military machine. Though much water has flowed through the Dnieper and many bombs have fallen on the benighted former Soviet republic, Dr Galeotti’s rigorous book offers a new perspective despite the morass of media and analytical verbiage on the war.  

Putin’s Wars, set against the familiar political trajectory of the chaotic post-Soviet era to the rise of Mr Putin and his imperial worldview, is an account of multiple programmes of military reform that began in the pre-Putin years but gained real traction after he came to power in 2000. Though the Keystone Kops-type bungling in the early days of the Ukraine war has done much damage to Russia’s military reputation, Dr Galeotti presents a portrait of a military machine that is actually a vast improvement on the one the Russian dictator inherited.

Blooded in Chechnya — the second war— Georgia, Syria, Crimea and the Donbass (eastern Ukraine) and dirty little wars in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, the Russian military apparatus appeared to absorb lessons with each encounter. The military was put through the wringer not just in combat but also in organisation, complemented by a vast outlay on weaponry, hardware and information technology.

This was no small task since, as Dr Galeotti recounts, the demoralised, underpaid and under-resourced army that Russia inherited worked on an incredibly chaotic command system. It had no professional corps of non-commissioned officers — the backbone of any army. Instead, conscripts, called up for two-year terms, would attach themselves to seniors who were halfway through their service in an informal patronage system that was rife with bullying and exploitation.

Mr Putin sought to reform the military in tune with his evolving perception of Russia early, briskly asserting control by appointing close allies as defence ministers. The first was Sergei Ivanov (2001-7), a KGB/FSB associate from Leningrad; then came Anatoly Serdyukov (2007-12), head of the Federal Tax Service, a ruthless cost-cutter who did not care what the generals thought of him but was brought down by a sex scandal; and, finally, the incumbent Sergei Shoigu, former minister for emergency situations and governor of Moscow region. General Shoigu’s reputation is distinctly tarnished by Russia’s performance in Ukraine (Dr Galeotti reports suggestions that he may shortly be appointed Military Governor for Siberia).    

The core of change in the ground forces was replacing the traditional divisional system with brigades, each with its spearhead of Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs), “modular forces typically drawn from all-volunteer elements in its brigades that gave the army greater flexibility in the field”. Dr Galeotti describes in some detail the upgrading of weaponry in five chapters. Mr Putin views the military as just one arm in Russia’s war for supremacy — what the author calls “heavy metal diplomacy”. Dr Galeotti also chronicles the other institution in this armoury, Mr Putin’s notorious information warfare apparatus, but in less depth given the extreme secrecy surrounding these outfits.   

Part of the failure in Ukraine can be ascribed to the fact that reforms have not gone far enough, fast enough to defeat a smaller, better armed, battle-ready opponent. At the heart of the problem is the recruitment system. Russia’s forces are divided between conscription — which is forcing young men to flee Russia now — kontraktniki, members of a higher paid all-professional, permanent-readiness units. There are the notorious crime-ridden private contractors such as the Wagner Group, owned by oligarch Yevgeny Prighozin — known as “Putin’s chef” because his company has a range of government catering contracts — that are deployed to offer (im)plausible deniability in Russian state adventurism, such as in Crimea and Donbas. Such organisational asymmetries do not enhance battlefield cohesion.

More to the point, Russia is yet to fully discard Soviet-era problems. The loss of access to Ukraine’s defence industries — which impacts Russian supplies to India too — has crippled efficiency as the breakdown of artillery and tanks during the invasion showed. The clunky domestic military-industrial complex suffers all the inefficiencies of monopsonies — compounded by late payments from a bankrupt state exchequer.

Finally, there is the age-old weakness of logistics — including railways that run on wider gauge than the rest of Europe and supply dumps that are hundreds of kilometres from the front line. “Indeed, the way the 2022 Ukrainian invasion quickly bogged down was evidence both of the challenges of logistics and of the catastrophic degree to which Putin and his commanders failed to properly consider them,” Dr Galeotti writes.

Being part of the Western security intelligentsia, Dr Galeotti thinks Russia is no match for NATO and Mr Putin’s political future could founder on Ukraine. He also describes China as Russia’s “frenemy” rather than a genuine ally. The current state of play makes it hard to say whether those predictions are prescient or inaccurate. The anticipated spring offensive may provide some answers.