Ukrainian armed forces struggle with Soviet legacy

“Egos and desk clerks”

Ukrainian Armed Forces grapple with Soviet heritage and other issues

Complaints from soldiers and fighters on Ukraine’s Eastern Front show the Soviet legacy is weighing on Ukraine’s armed forces and putting those on the ground at risk.

published1. April 2023, 12:23

Volunteers training the Dnieper regiment in central Ukraine.

20 minutes/ Ann Guenter

• A visit to the «Dnypro» regiment and fighters on the Ukrainian Eastern Front showed:

• A culture clash between Soviet military thought and Western military culture is brewing within the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces.

• “The dispute harms the country in the fight with Russia,” says military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady.

• “The Ukrainian armed forces should shed their Soviet heritage and allow young officers to take the initiative without being punished,” Gady said.

For a good ten days, 150 new volunteers from the region have been training in the barracks of a summer camp in central Ukraine. There are wood processors, car salesmen and employees of Ukrsalisnyzja, the Ukrainian SBB counterpart. Now they want to join the ranks of the infantry or drone unit of the «Dnypro» regiment (see box). Two of them assure us that this also has something to do with commander Yuriy Beresa. He has a reputation for not “burning” his people in battle.

Beresa, a former member of parliament, entrepreneur and active in the Dnjpro football club, is more bear than birch, which is what his surname means in Russian. He doesn’t think much of military conformism, he dreads Soviet military thinking with its top-down command structures, he’s already done that last year when meeting with 20 minutes clearly.

“Hard to get out of your head”

That is one of the reasons why he joined the commander Beresa, says the Polish chief instructor of “Dnjpro”, who only uses his first name, «Batman», want to see.

The 37-year-old, who has a permit from his government and has been with the Volunteer Militia since last year, advocates bottom-up missions that give field commanders the freedom to undertake assignments of any rank and at their discretion to execute.

The reality looks different. “Some Ukrainian officers, especially in the highest ranks, limit initiatives from below in favor of rigid operational orders, which they often issue far from the front,” the trainer annoys. “There are a lot of desk workers and big egos buzzing around. And the Soviet mentality is hard to get out of your head.”

20 minutes/ Ann Guenter

A culture war is brewing in the Ukrainian armed forces

Also other fighters on the Donbass front criticized the rigid textbook thinking on the carpet floors. Initiatives on the ground would be thwarted by people in higher ranks enforcing rigid operational orders away from the front lines.

Military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady warns: “Part of the Ukrainian armed forces, especially the ground forces, are in danger of falling back into their old and inflexible methods.”

“A culture clash between Soviet military thinking and Western military culture is brewing in the Ukrainian armed forces,” observes Gady. The fight ultimately hurt Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Operations still performed sequentially

Sticking to the rigid command structure hinders communication and cooperation with other units. Therefore, most of the Ukrainian operations would still be carried out sequentially rather than jointly, the analyst said.

“That means they follow a rigid schedule in which isolated actions — an artillery barrage here, an infantry attack there — take place sequentially, rather than simultaneously, as modern combined force tactics dictate.”

Part of a camouflage net made of various materials.

20 minutes/ Ann Guenter

Distorted image of a NATO-level Ukrainian army

Contrary to the Western image – and one that Ukraine likes to fuel – the Ukrainian army has not changed from a rigid, hierarchical Soviet-style armed force to an adaptable, effective military at NATO level, says Gady.

In addition, there were high casualties among the NATO-trained Ukrainian soldiers in the first months of the war. They were often followed by retired Ukrainian officers who still have a Soviet military mentality.

Discard Soviet cultural heritage

“The ongoing culture war in the ranks of the armed forces makes transforming Ukraine into a 21st-century combat force a difficult undertaking,” Gady notes. “The West could help by stepping up its training efforts, including for the highest Ukrainian officials.”

For this to make any difference, however, “the Ukrainian armed forces must first shed their Soviet heritage, delegate powers to lower ranks, and allow junior officers to take the initiative without being penalized.”

Hunted, on the ground and with drones

20 minutes/ Ann Guenter

Meanwhile, the trainers from “Dnjpro” are talking about the training and the ongoing 24-hour exercise that has been going on in the surrounding fields and forests for ten hours in the freezing cold. “Batman” and his Ukrainian colleague – call sign “Mouse”, he calls his gun “Mickey” – had let out rocket hits at three o’clock in the morning and blew up explosives.

“The men had to find their positions in the forest and hold them throughout the day. At the same time, we hunt them on the ground and with drones.” It’s tough training, but you get results quickly. “According to NATO standards, training for light infantry takes 124 days. A good half of that has to be enough for us.”

“Who shall we replace the men with?”

At the end of the exercise, two infantrymen give up, four days earlier there were 24. “Batman” does not expect that more than half of the original 150 men will hold out until the end of the training in two months. Many are simply too old for the war at over 40 years of age. “But who shall we replace them with?”

* Franz-Stefan Gady is a policy advisor and analyst at the Institute for International Strategic Studies (IISS) in Vienna. He advises governments and armed forces in Europe and the United States.

Regiment Dnieper and Co.

The Dnjpro Regiment is a voluntary combat unit founded in April 2014, which claims to have 1,000 men. According to its website, it is both the only police unit and the only aerial reconnaissance platoon in Ukraine. Like all militia units, the Dnieper Regiment is subordinate to the Ukrainian National Guard and thus to the Ministry of the Interior.

The militia unit was first established in April 2014 on a voluntary basis as a patrol police battalion. His original duties included securing checkpoints in south-eastern Ukraine.

The unit is now funded by the Interior Ministry, but its nickname “Kolomoyskyi’s Battalion” refers to the time the association was founded in 2014: the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and former governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is said to have spent ten million dollars to create the unit. In 2014, a UN report accused several Ukrainian volunteer organizations of kidnapping and torturing political opponents, including the Dnieper battalion.

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