ФОТО: Военный потенциал России против Украины. Источник: Russia Military Options Against Ukraine. Map and Briefing by Igor Sutyagin and Michael Clarke // Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 04.04.2014.
Опубликовано: Технополис завтра (Краматорск).
Предисловие Владимира Константиновича Зыкова, эксперта Центра стратегической конъюнктуры. Как уже известно, ЦРУ США «проспало» для Обамы Крым, но, оказывается, разведка Её Величества спит не хуже: ведущий военный аналитический центр Короны «проспал» Донецкую Народную Республику и переход власти по всему юго-востоку к народу. Выражение «Англичанка гадит» известно ещё со времён А.В. Суворова (а кто-то ему это выражение и приписывает), вот только гадить получается почему-то всё хуже. Вероятно, ох, как прав В.В. Путин, заявив, что мозги им надо поменять, а не конституцию.
В чём же проблема? Только ли в том, что там работают предатели России — Резун, автор двух статей ниже Сутягин, и иже с ними? Вряд ли: предатели ведь не обязательно бездари. Этого добра, бездарей, у них и самих хватает в избытке. Могли бы и продавать, да никто не берёт (и не спрашивайте, зачем Нурсултану Абишевичу нужен был английский советник — не знаю зачем, но уж точно не для советов).
Глядя на европейцев вообще и на англичан в частности, я сочувствую нашим аналитикам: ведь прогнозировать можно поступки разумных людей, но как предвидеть поступки «альтернативно одарённых», толерантно выражаясь? Спасает, видимо, только то, что эти поступки чаще всего или не особо вредят, или даже идут на пользу России.
Выкладываю три статьи (пока на английском) на эту тему. Британская разведка не отстаёт от пресловутых британских учёных: на полном серьёзе и, вероятно, очень даже не бесплатно сравнивают ВС России с ВС Украины. Хотя проще было бы сравнить украинские войска с грузинскими перед 08.08.08 и сделать все необходимые выводы. А если ещё вспомнить о том, что армия — плоть от плоти народа, а львиная доля народа Украины попросту откажется стрелять в русских братьев, то и этого делать не надо. Да и недавний опыт Крыма весьма показателен…
Ранее в тему:
[***] НОВОЕ СДЕРЖИВАНИЕ РОССИИ (STRATFOR) Американская стратегия после Украины: от Эстонии до Азербайджана. From Estonia to Azerbaijan: American Strategy After Ukraine // Технополис завтра (Краматорск). Перевод ИноСМИ. 28.07.2014.
[***] Украина — восстановление Родины. Александр Собянин о статье Владимира Павленко и Владимира Штоля «Закулисные пружины украинского кризиса» // ИА REX. 26.03.2014.
[***] Павел Быков, Геворг Мирзаян: Что это было? Крым: вовремя, аккуратно, решительно. Россия снова Сверхдержава // Эксперт. №13 (892). 24.03.2014.
[***] УКРАИНСКИЙ РАЗЛОМ: Принуждение Европы к поддержке Майдана и транзит углеводородов // ИА REGNUM. 18.03.2014.
Карта 1. Наземные войска Украины (без ВМСУ)
Источник: // Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 27.03.2014. (там масштаб больше)
Карта 2. Военный потенциал России против Украины
Источник: // Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 04.04.2014.
Военный потенциал России против Украины
Карта и текст Игоря Сутягина и директора RUSI Майкла Кларка
Время пошло и русские военные «на взводе».
// Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 04.04.2014.
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The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is an independent think tank engaged in cutting edge defence and security research. A unique institution, founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington, RUSI embodies nearly two centuries of forward thinking, free discussion and careful reflection on defence and security matters.
Dr Igor Sutyagin is a Research Fellow in Russian Studies at RUSI.
Professor Michael Clarke is the Director-General of RUSI.
Dr. Igor Sutyagin’s research is concerned with US-Russian relations, strategic armaments developments and broader nuclear arms control, anti-ballistic missile defense systems.
Prior to joining RUSI, Dr Sutyagin completed his PhD in History of Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Moscow Institute for the USA and Canada Studies (Russian Academy of Science), which was supervised by Professor Andrey Kokoshin. His thesis explored the US Navy’s role in carrying out the US foreign policy tasks throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He has written extensively on nuclear and conventional arms control, including naval arms control, safety and security of nuclear weapons, modernization and development of modern armaments as well as issues associated with ABM systems and their stabilising influence upon of the US-Russian relationship. He has authored over 100 articles and booklets published in the Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland. He is also the co-author of the book Russian Strategic Nuclear Weapons. Igor worked at the Institute of US and Canadian Studies for 12 years at the Political-Military Studies Department where he held the position of the Head of Section, the US military-technical and military-economy policy.
Igor has a PhD in History of Foreign Policy and International Relations (1995) from the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow and a Masters Degree in Radio-physics and Electronics from the Physics Department, Moscow State University (1988).
Professor Michael Clarke
Position: Director General
Professor Michael Clarke is currently the Director General of the Royal United Services Institute. Until July 2007 he was Deputy Vice-Principal and Director of Research Development at King’s College London, where he is now also Visiting Professor of Defence Studies. He was, from 1990 to 2001 the founding Director of the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s. He was appointed Professor of Defence Studies in 1995. He was the founding Director of the International Policy Institute at King’s College London from 2001-2005 and Head of the School of Social Science and Public Policy at KCL in 2004-05.
He has previously taught international politics at the Universities of Aberystwyth, Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne, and also at the University of New Brunswick, and the Open University. He has been a Guest Fellow at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, and a Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
He has been a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee since 1997, having served previously with the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee 1995-6, and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Bribery in 2009. In 2004 he was appointed the UK member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. In 2009 he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s National Security Forum and in 2010 to the Chief of Defence Staff’s new Strategic Advisory Group. He also serves on the Strategic Advisory Panel on Defence for UK Trade and Industry.
His recent publications include: The Afghan Papers: Committing Britain to War in Helmand 2005-06, London, RUSI/Routledge 2011; United Kingdom: Strategic Posture Review, World Politics Review, November 2011; ‘Does War Have a Future?, in Lindley-French and Boyar eds., The Oxford Handbook of War, Oxford, OUP, 2012.
—
RUSI News, 4 Apr 2014 By Dr Igor Sutyagin, Research Fellow, Russian Studies; Professor Michael Clarke, Director General
RUSI Briefing Examines Possible Russian Military Strategies Against Ukraine
Map. Russia Military Options Against Ukraine
Figure 1: Potential Russian Military Moves into Ukraine and Known Redeployments.
Figure 2: Ukraine’s Ground Forces, March 2014.
With elections set to be held in Ukraine in May, the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is about to enter a critical, and perhaps more dangerous period. Russian military planners may take the opportunity to intervene before further erosion of the combat effectiveness of their troops.
Based on current knowledge, expert insight and research, RUSI has published a briefing setting out four military scenarios that now have to be factored into the political calculations for both sides.They are not predictions nor are they a complete picture of a complex and dynamic situation. Nevertheless, the military dispositions of Ukrainian and Russian forces are becoming more relevant to the political equation, and for a range of reasons they may reduce the time in which politics and negotiation can mitigate the effects of this crisis.
Ukraine Military Dispositions. The Military Ticks Up while the Clock Ticks Down. Igor Sutyagin and Michael Clarke // Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 04.04.2014.
Box 1: Possible Ukrainian Troop Movements
It is apparent that the Ukrainian military is responding to the Russian build up. To defend against the Russian military sub-groups ‘Klimovo’ and, possibly, ‘L’gov’, there are some signs that Ukrainians have relocated the following formations:
• 30th Mechanised Brigade (item #5 in Figure 2)
• 95th Air Mobile Brigade (#12)
• 72nd Mechanised Brigade (#16)
• 3rd Special Operations (Spetsnaz) Regiment (#23)
In addition, Ukraine has mobilised and increased the alert status of the 169th Training Centre (roughly equivalent to a reduced-strength motorised division, north-east of #3). To defend against the sub-groups ‘Rostov-Don’ and ‘Taganrog’, there are also signs that Ukraine has moved the following formations to Donetsk Oblast:
• 25th Airborne Brigade (#26)
• And, possibly, components of the 17th Tank Brigade (#27).
To defend against sub-group ‘Crimea’, Ukraine has moved these formations to Kherson Oblast:
• Components of the 17th Tank Brigade (#27)
• 79th Air Mobile Brigade (#29)
• Components of the 28th Mechanised Brigade (#30).
To prevent the advance of Russian troops from Transnistria, these forces may have been relocated:
• Components of 28th Mechanised Brigade (#30)
• Components of 80th Air Mobile Regiment (#8).
Finally, to defend against sub-group ‘Boguchar’, this formation may have been moved to Luhansk Oblast:
• 93rd Mechanised Brigade (#24).
Royal United Services Institute
April 2014
BRIEFING PAPER
On 2 April, NATO’s Supreme Commander in Europe General Philip M Breedlove made it clear that the Alliance is about to announce a series of military measures to demonstrate that it is still a working military command structure capable of defending all its external borders. These measures are designed both to reassure NATO’s eastern members and to send a loud message to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin that military adventures in the former Soviet space would create an even more dangerous crisis for Europe than the seizure of Crimea. No one, including Putin, knows what he may do next as the situation changes. The crisis in Ukraine raised the Crimea issue for him both as a difficult problem as well as an opportunity, and he apparently chose to seize the opportunity without much anticipation of the cost.
For that reason alone, NATO officials have something to worry about. Alongside the political initiatives to create a negotiated outcome and the sanctions to apply pressure on the Russian leadership, there is a military dynamic that is becoming more worrying and urgent. Russian troop deployments – amounting to nearly 50,000 personnel – are noted in Figure 1, with their reserve elements behind them. Ukrainian troop dispositions as of a month ago are illustrated in Figure 2, though this analysis is now becoming outdated since it is known that some Ukrainian forces have begun to take up positions in eastern Ukraine (see Box 1), drawing away from such a heavy concentration in the west. They appear to be doing this covertly, however, and it is not currently possible to locate all of their new positions.
Several trends are evident in these two diagrams. In Figure 1, the composite military formations ‘Klimovo’, ‘L’gov’, ‘Belgorod’ and possibly ‘Polessya’ are the most significant. These forces stand opposite Kiev and the regions to its east. Their disposition holds the capital and the Kiev government at risk in any attack and compels Ukraine to keep a significant proportion of its forces in that area and therefore not available to operate further east. The military groups ‘Taganrog’ and ‘Crimea’ are the other key forces that would have the potential to open a secure land corridor into Crimea from Russia north of the Sea of Azov. Such a corridor would have far greater capacity in terms of transport and logistics than the tenuous link across the Kerch Strait at the south of the sea.
The Ukrainian army numbers around 70,000, but it is poorly equipped and would struggle to mobilise fully. In the event of a military clash, its formations would be locally outnumbered and certainly outgunned by Russian forces and their reserves. As Figure 2 indicates, they cannot quickly deploy in great numbers too far out of their western dispositions to do much about any Russian military incursions into the south-east of the country. Importantly, most of the Russian units described in Figure 1 are at readiness – not on exercise – held in a pre-combat state that can only be maintained for a limited period. It is reported that these units include cyber capabilities and – tellingly – field hospitals among their forward formations. General Breedlove estimates that they would only need to fight for three to five days to accomplish initial objectives of a limited nature.
Four Military Scenarios
These troop dispositions suggest four military scenarios that now have to be factored into the political calculations.
The first scenario is that these dispositions are no more than muscle-flexing on the part of Moscow to persuade Ukraine and other powers that they must acquiesce to the seizure of Crimea quickly, or face something worse.
In this scenario, Russian forces would be stood down quite quickly once the political process has given Putin the recognition of his fait accompli over the Crimea. But the probability of this scenario is diminished by the fact that Ministry of the Interior troops have been moved to high alert, troops whose purpose is the pacification of occupied populations (see the Appendix for a fuller discussion of their role).
The second scenario posits that Russian forces would covertly support, or even engineer, civil unrest throughout south-east Ukraine and use that as a pretext for opening the secure land corridor to Crimea through Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts. Ukraine would pay another territorial price of a further Russian illegal annexation.
The third scenario is that unrest and separatist pressures in south and eastern Ukraine, real or manufactured, may present a dangerous, but nevertheless tempting opportunity to split the country in two, south and east of the Dnieper River. Presidential elections in Ukraine on 25 May, particularly if they are accompanied by some sort of shadow election for a ‘President of South-East Ukraine’, could spark the civil tension that might offer such a dangerous temptation. Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while it lasted as a secessionist entity, provides a historical parallel and there is evidence that Moscow is even encouraging the Serbs who once proclaimed their secession from Bosnia to voice their support for similar Russian separatist demands in Ukraine.
The fourth scenario would involve Russian troops executing a move of grand strategy, creating a western corridor from Transnistria in Moldova into Crimea through Odessa and Mykolaiv Oblasts, which would encompass the historic city of Odessa itself. This would be a more tenuous link than an eastern corridor, but it would bring a Russian ethnic community from Transnistria into a continuous corridor to the Russian homeland. Whether it would be sustainable in regions that are less than a third Russian-speaking is debateable, but it would constitute a bargaining chip of some importance if there were any initial acquiescence to it. It would likely only make sense in a total campaign to divide the country into a south and south-east, annexed and/or controlled by Russia on the one hand and a western rump governed from a vulnerable capital in Kiev on the other. Such an arc of ‘new Russian’ territory transforming the map of Black Sea Europe would be a fundamental challenge to the European order. It would represent a land grab from another independent European state – Moldova – and invite inter-communal violence that would affect the stability of even Romania, a NATO member.
This scenario would represent a completely new departure in European security politics, more serious than almost anything seen during the Cold War, let alone since that time.
Geopolitical Realities
There are some stark geopolitical realities that make several of these scenarios more plausible – incentivising aggressive action by Putin – even if they are not so far the most likely.
Energy
The first is that Russia’s Gazprom has taken control of all Ukraine’s off-shore oil and gas fields in the Sea of Azov. Previously, European companies had been promised licenses to operate in these areas, so Gazprom could face some legal challenges. Nevertheless, an eastern corridor into Crimea from the Russian homeland would cut Ukraine off from the Sea of Azov and make it part of Russian territory. The long-running dispute over the Kerch Strait would also be removed by such an annexation of territory.
Food
Crimea is dependent on Ukraine for 85 per cent of its food supplies. Crimea continues to be supplied from the rest of Ukraine, but road transportation currently takes around two days from mainland Ukraine to the Crimean capital of Simferopol with many border checks (established by the Crimean authorities) involved. The ferry across the Kerch Strait can only handle 400 people or 60 vehicles per hour, while the Port of Kerch has very poor facilities and no refrigeration for food and perishables. In this situation, food supplies in Crimea are already under strain and cannot be easily met by air and sea supply from Russia. The opening of a secure land corridor would mitigate the problem immediately.
Military Imports
Of Russia’s total imports, only 4.4 per cent come from Ukraine, but they are vital for some key elements of Russia’s military establishment. Some 30 per cent of Ukrainian military exports to Russia are unique and cannot currently be substituted by Russian production. Russia’s heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles (the SS-18 ICBMs) are designed and produced by the Yuzhmash combine in Dnepropetrovsk. SS-18s are regularly checked and maintained by Yuzhmash specialists. Two other strategic missile systems – the SS-25 (RT-2PM Topol) and the SS-19 (UR-100 NUTTKh) – are designed and produced by Russian-based enterprises, but use guidance systems designed and produced in Ukraine by the Kharkiv-based Khartron Scientific-Industrial Combine. The SS-18, SS-19 and SS-25 currently make up some 51 per cent of Russia’s overall strategic nuclear-weapons inventory and over 80 per cent of that of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces specifically. In addition, some 20 per cent of the natural uranium currently consumed by Russia’s nuclear industry, both for civilian and military purposes, comes from Zholti Vody in Ukraine.
Since Soviet days, Russia’s ship-building programme has heavily depended on gas-turbine engines and gears produced in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. While Russian industry has learned how to build large gas-turbine engines since then, it cannot yet master manufacturing the gears for them and Russia requires Ukrainian-produced gears for 60 per cent of the surface combatants planned for its navy.
The Russian air force is also critically dependent on the Ukrainian defence industry. Ukrainian enterprises produce the R-27 (the AA-10 Alamo) mediumrange air-to-air missile (AAM), as well as the seekers for the R-73 (AA-11 Archer) short-range AAM – which, between them, represent the majority of anti-air missiles operated by Russian fighters. Many of the auxiliary systems – from hydraulics to drogue parachutes – for the Russian Su-27, Su-30 and Su-35 fighters, as well as for Russia’s newest Su-34, are also produced in Ukraine. In Zaporizhia, the Motor-Sich plant has a major role in Russian aviation. Motor-Sich produces jet engines for a variety of Russian transport jet aircraft, including the An-124 Ruslan, the largest Russian transport aircraft, as well as for some combat and training aircraft. The plant also produces engines for all Russian combat and transport helicopters, as well as auxiliary power units for all Russian helicopters and many types of combat and transport aircraft.
Russia has made a vast effort to reduce its dependence upon Motor-Sich engines, but the evidence is that it cannot produce enough engines to meet its own demand – to say nothing of an ambitious rearmament programme, which looks as if it will require at least 3,000 helicopter engines in a two-tothree year period to equip Russian forces.
Russia’s dependence on Motor-Sich also has the effect of restricting its own military and aviation exports. For the period 2013–16, Russia has secured contracts for the delivery of over 260 new helicopters around the world, all of which are equipped with either main or auxiliary engines supplied by the Ukrainian company. On 28 March, the state-owned company that controls all Ukrainian armaments and military-related production – Ukroboronprom – announced a freeze on all future supplies to Russia. The effects of this freeze on Russian military production as well as its export potential will certainly be felt in the medium term, if not immediately.
This military dependence on Ukrainian production could be read in one of two ways. We might assume that it increases Putin’s incentive to find a peaceful resolution in his relationship with Ukraine, so that supplies are not interrupted and Russia has more time to decrease its critical military dependencies on Ukrainian production. In light of the Crimea takeover, that dependence will not likely be relieved quickly by the Ukrainians.
Equally, however, it could be argued that since most of the military plants in question are in south and east Ukraine, the temptation to follow the third and fourth scenarios will be all the greater. To suggest these scenarios for the sake of capturing the production at these various plants would be a very nineteenth-century way of looking at a twenty-first century relationship. However, even that cannot be ruled out in current circumstances.
The Next Month
The month of May will be a critical time. Until Ukraine’s elections take place in May, the government in Kiev lacks legitimacy, and that fact continues to support Russia’s patterns of behaviour in arguing that it is protecting Russian speakers in Crimea from violence. If the elections go well in May, then Putin’s claims to be acting for humanitarian motives will be severely diminished.
On the other hand, if the elections do not go well and are accompanied by competing shadow elections in other parts of the country, the resulting confusion and even violence may present further, albeit dangerous, opportunities to strengthen Russia’s position around the Black Sea. In addition, Russian troops, at readiness now for over two to three weeks, will be approaching eight weeks at readiness by early to mid May; at this point, combat effectiveness tends to wear off. Troops can only be held at readiness for so long before systems have to be replaced and rotated and inefficiencies set in. Not least, the rotation of conscript troops in Russia’s forces is already underway from 1 April to 15 July, and the disruptive effects of this may also create a substantial loss of combat effectiveness. Russian commanders will be aware that they will have to decide to use their troops or stand them down sometime before the summer.
What we have set out here are scenarios based on current knowledge. They are not predictions nor are they a complete picture of a complex and dynamic situation. Nevertheless, the military dispositions of Ukrainian and Russian forces are becoming more relevant to the political equation, and for a range of reasons they may reduce the time in which politics and negotiation can mitigate the effects of this crisis.
Appendix
The Russian Ministry of Defence troop deployment consists of four groups and two other supposed (but unconfirmed) groupings. Troops are mainly organised in battalion tactical groups (BTGr). The difference between a Russian BTGr and a British battlegroup is that a BTGr represents a battalion supplemented by non-organic elements (usually a tank company and an artillery battery) attached to the battalion and subordinated to the battalion’s commanding officer. A battlegroup, meanwhile, although flexible in its organisation, is traditionally a battalion with one of its sub-units substituted by that of another unit, with various other support elements attached (for example, an armoured infantry battalion with a tank squadron instead of one of its organic infantry companies).
Northern Group
Element Personnel
Klimovo Sub-Group
2 x BTGr of the 51st Guards Parachute Regiment/106th Guards
Airborne Division
1 x artillery battalion of the 1182nd Guards Airborne Artillery
Regiment/106th Guards Airborne Division
6th Tank Brigade
1 x battalion of the 2nd Spetsnaz GRU Brigade L’gov Sub-Group
2 x BTGr of the 1st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment/2nd Guards
Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division
1 x self-propelled artillery battalion of the 147th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment/2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division
13th Guards Tank Regiment/4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Divisionb
1 x battalion of the 2nd Spetsnaz Brigade Reserves
15th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment/2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division
1 x self-propelled artillery battalion of the 147th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment/2nd Guards Tamanskaya Division 12th Guards Tank Regiment/4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division
1 x self-propelled artillery battalion of the 275th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment/4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division
Total 9–9,400
Belgorod Group
Element Personnel
27th Guards Motor Brigade
1 x self-propelled artillery battalion of the 147th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment/2nd Guards Tamanskaya Division
1 x BTGr of the 15th Motor Rifle Brigadec
3 x BTGrs of the 104th Guards (234th Guards?) Air Assault Regiment/76th Guards Air Assault Division
1 x BTGr of the 51st Guards Airborne Regiment/106th Guards Airborne Division
1 x BTGr of the 137th Guards Airborne Regiment/106th Guards Airborne Division
(Probably) 1 or 2 x BTGr of the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment/76th Guards Air Assault Division
2 x battalions of the 16th Spetsnaz GRU Brigade Reservesd
2 x BTGr of the 23rd Guards Motor Rifle Brigadee
1 x self-propelled artillery battalion of the 275th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment/4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division
Total 8,000
Donbass Group
Element Personnel
Boguchar Sub-Groupf
2 x BTGr of the 20th Guards Motor Rifle brigade
1 x battalion of the 10th Spetsnaz GRU brigade Rostov-Don Sub-Groupg
2 x BTGr of the 137th Guards Paratroop Regiment/106th Guards Airborne Division
1 x self-propelled artillery battalion of the 1182nd Guards Airborne Artillery Regiment/106th Guards Airborne Division
1 x battalion of the 22nd Guards Spetsnaz GRU Brigade
2 x battalions of the 943rd Rocket-Artillery (MLRS) Regiment Reserves
56th Air Assault Brigade
Total 8,000
Tavriya Group
Element Personnel
Taganrog Sub-Group
2 x BTGr of the 205th Motor Rifle Brigade
1 x or 2x BTGr of the 98th Guards Airborne Division
1 x battalion of the 346th Spetsnaz GRU Brigade
1 x battalion of the 25th Spetsnaz GRU Regiment
Sub-total 3,000
Crimea Sub-Group
810th Marines Brigade
31st Guards Air Assault Brigade
1 x BTGr of the 18th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade
1 x BTGr of the 15th Motor Brigade
1 x battalion of the 943rd Rocket-Artillery (MLRS) Regiment
1 x battalion of the 22nd Guards Spetsnaz GRU Brigade
1 x battalion of the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz GRU Brigade
1 x battalion of the 45th Spetsnaz Regiment of Airborne Troops
Sub-total 7,800
Reserves
33rd Mountain Infantry Brigade
34th Mountain Infantry Brigade
7th Air Assault Division
Sub-total 12,500
Total 23,300
Transnistria Group
Plans to use these units in the prospective operation against Ukraine are questionable and are not confirmed by any reliable sources.
Element Personnel
82nd Motor Rifle Battalion
113th Motor Rifle Battalion
2 x battalions of the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz GRU Brigade
Total 1,600
Polessya Group (Belarus)
There have been reports of the presence of up to 1,800 servicemen (a full regiment) of the 137th Guards Paratroop Regiment from the 106th Guards Airborne Division in plain clothes on the territory of Belarus. But this is implausible, given that it is known that the troops of the 106th are deployed elsewhere.
One cannot exclude the possibility that personnel of the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment (or possibly the 104th Guards Air Assault Regiment) of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, in plain clothes, might be present in Belarus.
However, the presence of these troops is uncertain, while plans to use these units in the prospective operation against Ukraine are highly questionable and have not been confirmed by reliable sources.
Ministry of Defence troops in areas adjacent to the border are partially located beyond a 50-kilometre zone from the border itself, which is still within an hour’s reach of the Ukrainian territory. Any calculation of the number of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border depends on the counting method used. One approach is to tally manoeuvre units alone, that is, those combat units directly participating in operations, such as infantry, tank, special operations and artillery.
This approach provides an estimate of approximately 48,500 troops.
The alternative approach is to consider all combat-support units (including electronic warfare, communications and engineers) and rear support units (including transportation, ammunition supply and so on).
This approach provides an estimate of approximately 92–94,000 troops.
Since mid-March, high levels of activity among the Russian Military Air Transport Command’s transport aircraft have been detected in areas adjacent to the Russo–Ukrainian border. The second-largest planes in the Russian fleet – An-22 Antey turboprop aircraft, designed to transport heavy armoured vehicles – are also participating in transportation operations. This level of activity is unprecedented in exercises and strongly suggests that these planes are ferrying supplies and equipment to troop concentrations – a clear sign of the seriousness of Russian intentions.
When Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu was called by US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on 20 March, he reassured his US colleague that Russian military activity near the Ukrainian border represented no more than military exercises – but was unable to provide information on their planned duration. This is a clear sign that the Russian military machine is currently on a war-footing; further, the minister of defence has been bypassed, with the General Staff planning all operations and serving as the Supreme Commander’s HQ, as is war-time practice. (According to the Russian constitution, the president is the supreme commander of the armed forces.)
Troops of the Ministry of Interior
There are also reports that troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs attached to the Central Regional Command of Internal Troops have been ordered to increase their readiness. This is a worrying sign, as the war-time task of troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is to pacify populations in occupied territory. The raised readiness of Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs troops could therefore indicate the Kremlin’s preparations to actually invade Ukraine – and to take measures to establish and maintain control of the occupied Ukrainian territories.
The troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs attached to the Central Regional Command of Internal Troops (the Central European part of Russia) include:
Operational units:
• 12th Division
• 55th Division
• 95th Division
• Separate Operational Division ‘Dzerzhinskiy’
• 21st Operational Special Purpose Brigade
• 5 x motor battalions.
Special operations units (battalion-sized):
• 25th Special Operations Detachment ‘Mercury’
• 33rd Special Operations Detachment ‘Peresvet’.
Internal troop divisions are manned by approximately 10,000 servicemen with armoured personnel carriers, artillery units, and around one battalion of tanks each.
Notes and References
a. A relocation of Russian troops closer to the Russo–Ukrainian border was detected in this Group’s area by Ukrainian observers. The 13th Guards Tank Regiment supposedly relocated to concentrate on the unused airfield near the village of Sachkovichi.
b. The 13th Guards Tank Regiment had moved closer to the border from the Reserves of Belgorod Group by 28 March.
c. One BTGr of the 15th Motor Rifle Brigade previously in Belgorod Group had relocated to Donbass Group near Rostov-na-Donu and then withdrawn back to Samara by 1 April.
d. The 13th Guards Tank Regiment had moved closer to the border from the Reserves of the Belgorod Group by 28 March.
e. One BTGr of the 23rd Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, previously in Belgorod Group, had withdrawn to Samara by 1 April.
f. The troops of Boguchar Sub-Group (deployed near Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast) had reportedly moved further away from the border by 29 March, according to Ukrainian observers.
g. One BTGr of the 15th Motor Rifle Brigade, previously in Belgorod Group, had relocated to Donbass Group near Rostov-na-Donu and withdrawn to Samara by 1 April.
***
Объединённый королевский институт по исследованию вопросов безопасности и обороны (англ. Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, ранее англ. Royal United Services Institution, сокращённо RUSI) — британский аналитический центр по оборонным вопросам.
Первоначально новоучреждённая институция называлась Военно-морским музеем (англ. Naval and Military Museum), нынешнее название присвоено в 1860 году. Среди руководителей института были видные британские военные деятели, в том числе фельдмаршал Джон Станиер. В 1893 г. королева Виктория передала в распоряжение института жемчужину английской архитектуры — Банкетный дом в центре Лондона. В настоящее время президентом института является Эдвард, герцог Кентский, председателем совета — бывший министр обороны Джон Хаттон.
(р. 17 января 1965 года в Москве) — учёный, бывший сотрудник Института США и Канады РАН, кандидат исторических наук[1]. В 2004 году был осуждён по статье 275 УК РФ (шпионаж) за государственную измену[2]. В 2010 году, проведя в заключении почти 11 лет, в результате обмена осуждёнными между Россией и США был освобождён и оказался в Великобритании.
***
Наземные войска Украины (без ВМСУ)
Карта и анализ Игоря Сутягина. Ukraine’s Ground Forces. Map and Analysis by Igor Sutyagin // Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 27.03.2014.
RUSI Analysis, 27 Mar 2014 By Dr Igor Sutyagin, Research Fellow, Russian Studies
Dr. Igor Sutyagin’s research is concerned with US-Russian relations, strategic armaments developments and broader nuclear arms control, anti-ballistic missile defense systems.
Prior to joining RUSI, Dr Sutyagin completed his PhD in History of Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Moscow Institute for the USA and Canada Studies (Russian Academy of Science), which was supervised by Professor Andrey Kokoshin. His thesis explored the US Navy’s role in carrying out the US foreign policy tasks throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He has written extensively on nuclear and conventional arms control, including naval arms control, safety and security of nuclear weapons, modernization and development of modern armaments as well as issues associated with ABM systems and their stabilising influence upon of the US-Russian relationship. He has authored over 100 articles and booklets published in the Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland. He is also the co-author of the book Russian Strategic Nuclear Weapons. Igor worked at the Institute of US and Canadian Studies for 12 years at the Political-Military Studies Department where he held the position of the Head of Section, the US military-technical and military-economy policy.
Igor has a PhD in History of Foreign Policy and International Relations (1995) from the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow and a Masters Degree in Radio-physics and Electronics from the Physics Department, Moscow State University (1988).
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Having effectively annexed Crimea, Russia now threatens the territorial integrity of the rest of Ukraine. How are Ukraine’s ground forces configured to deal with the challenge?
This map is the closest approximation of Ukrainian ground force (along with airborne and air-mobile units) deployments based on research of Ukrainian armed forces until February 2014. Readers will note that Ukrainian forces are concentrated in the west of the country, strongly indicating that the Ukrainian government never considered a military threat emanating from Russia. (see further analysis below, click map to enlarge)
Map. Ukraine’s Ground Forces March 2014
While Ukraine’s military doctrine was based upon the principle of neutrality, and while Ukraine actively participated in military cooperation with NATO and the West, the country’s practical military planning followed the pattern established during the Soviet era. Still configured to an outdated Cold War footing, Ukraine’s forces were concentrated in the western part of the country, with a higher availability of camps for military units in the western and central parts of Ukraine. The country is now faced with a situation where it is unprepared to rapidly react to the accumulation of Russian troops along its borders.
With the substantial build-up of Russian forces in the Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod and Rostov regions and in Crimea, the Ukrainian government has belatedly re-deployed ground troops to meet the prospective Russian move to south-eastern Ukraine. The lack of properly prepared camps for re-deployed units is one of the obvious difficulties Ukrainian troops will encounter in the process of redeployment.
The Ukrainian re-deployment process discloses another difficulty: the lack of proper plans for a massive movement of troops Indeed, troops far too often have to travel by their own, without the aid of railway transportation or heavy lorries to move armoured vehicles. As a result, the combat effectiveness of such vehicles is degraded after unaided transportation. This leads to the unnecessary and undesirable waste of the vehicles’ resource (short enough even without such moves) – which potentially might influence their combat characteristics in a case of hostility.
Ukrainian troops have also suffered from a prolonged period of under-financing, which negatively influenced their level of combat training compared to the better, though not perfectly trained Russian troops. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s belated troop redeployments to the east are further hampered with reports of a rapid concentration of ‘tourists’ from Russia in eastern Ukraine. The border between the two countries is effectively open and it is not certain how much effective control the Ukrainian authorities have over the east.
Ukrainian military experts have expressed their concerns that these ‘tourists’ might be another euphemism for the ‘self-defence’ units that sprung-up in Crimea and which later turned out to be Russian servicemen dressed in plain clothes. There is a real fear that these elements will infiltrate Ukraine in order to seize critical key-points without open involvement of Russian troops from the other side of the border.
If this were to be the case, the Ukrainian regular troops’ ability to intervene decisively would be severely restricted. This is because this situation would be presented by Russia supporters as a ‘civil unrest’. It would then be difficult for the Ukranian government to make the case for a clear-cut military intervention. Such civil unrest situations would instead be dealt by the police and the newly-established National Guard of Ukraine.
***
Преувеличенная военная мощь России
Комментарий Игоря Сутягина. Russia’s Overestimated Military Might. RUSI Newsbrief by Igor Sutyagin // Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). 25.03.2014.
RUSI Analysis, 25 Mar 2014 By Dr Igor Sutyagin, Research Fellow, Russian Studies
Recent events in Crimea, which has become the major focus of post-uprising Ukraine following reports of the arrival of Russian troops, have served to shine a light on Russia’s military capabilities. In particular, Putin’s strong statements rejecting the new government in Kiev and reserving ‘the right to use all means’ – including an invasion of the country’s east – to protect Russian citizens and interests have raised questions about the Russian military’s ability to follow through on these threats both in Ukraine and, potentially, in other former Soviet Union countries. There are reasons to believe that the strength of the Russian armed forces has been overestimated. An examination of the current state of the Russian ground forces supports such an analysis, and could provide important evidence in assessing prospects for the development of a military stand-off between Russia and the West.
The present structure of the Russian ground forces was established through the military reforms of 2008–11, which saw the army reorganised from a force designed to wage a large-scale, Second World War-style war into a more flexible force structured around brigades (rather than divisions). At the same time, the ground forces’ twenty-four combined-arms divisions and twelve combined-arms brigades were reorganised into four tank brigades; forty-one motorised rifle, mountain and reconnaissance brigades; and one tank, one motorised rifle, and one ‘fortifications’ division, as well as numerous specialist brigades and regiments. The overall size of the 395,000-strong force was also reduced to the current 270,000, alongside reserve forces and capabilities designed on a similar basis to the US ‘prepositioning’ doctrine, with brigade-level assets – including armament and equipment – prepositioned at dedicated storage and servicing bases in areas considered by the Russian General Staff to constitute potential sources of military threat. According to this arrangement, in the event of an emergency, troops from brigades deployed elsewhere in Russia would be transported by the fastest means, usually by air, with light arms, in order to deploy with the armaments stored at their destination. The response could also involve establishing additional brigades in the threatened areas, thus strengthening local forces in a matter of days. Meanwhile, should a large-scale war break out, the strategically located storage and servicing bases are designed to act as bases from which to set up additional ‘wartime’ brigades, manned by reservists.
While the design of these reforms was good, in practice, there have been unforeseen outcomes. The core problem today is the lack of standardisation vis-a`-vis the armaments allocated to the brigades. For example, the motorised rifle brigades established as part of the new structure comprise four different types: two types of ‘heavy’-brigade, as well as ‘medium’- and ‘light’-brigade structures. These, along with the tank brigades, are equipped with ten different modifications of four different types of main battle tank (the T-64, T-72, T-80 and T-90), and seven different types of armoured personnel carrier (APC) and infantry fighting vehicle (IFV). These differ significantly in their respective characteristics and capabilities. The MT-LB tracked APC, for example, is armed with a 7.62-mm PKTM machine gun, while the wheeled BTR-70 and BTR-80 APCs are both armed with 14.5-mm KPVT machine guns. (The former is also powered by a petrol engine, while the latter is equipped with a diesel engine, a fact that is of importance to drivers, given differences in tolerable rates of acceleration that could damage the engine and put the vehicle under threat in a combat environment.) The wheeled BTR-82A APC, meanwhile, is armed with a 30-mm 2A72 automatic gun, in contrast to the BMP-1 IFV, whose main weapon is a 2A28 73-mm smooth-barrel gun (in effect, a grenade launcher), the BMP-2 IFV, which carries a 30-mm 2A42 automatic gun, and the BMP-3 IFV, which is armed with a twinned 2A70 100-mm rifled cannon and 2A72 30-mm automatic gun. ‘Light’ brigades, instead, use ‘Hammer’-style vehicles in place of APCs or IFVs, armed with light or heavy machine guns.
These differences present a nightmare for gunners, as machine guns of different calibres, small-calibre automatic guns, 2A28 ‘grenade launchers’ and 100-mm rifled cannons all have different ballistics, with those trained to operate one type not necessarily able to use others in combat without the proper – and rather lengthy – training. (Needless to say, the fire-control systems of fighting vehicles created over several generations – including the MT-LB and BMP-3 – have nearly nothing in common either.) This calls into question the very idea that brigades might be fully combat-ready immediately upon taking possession of combat vehicles at their corresponding bases.
This exact problem was encountered during the Vostok-2010 exercises in the Russian Far East. During these exercises, one battalion of the Central Military District’s 28th motorised rifle brigade, trained to operate BMP-2 IFVs, was deployed to the Eastern Military District by air to take part in a phase of the exercises using armaments stored at the 247th storage and servicing base. As it turned out, however, these armaments comprised BMP-1s, meaning that troops from the 28th brigade were unable to make effective use of the vehicles they had been assigned. This turned out to be a difficult problem to fix, and three years later, the Vostok-2013 exercises saw the relocation of the Central Military District’s 74th motorised rifle brigade to the Far East, with its own armaments and equipment, by rail. This reveals that the proposed ‘prepositioning’ of elements of the ground forces is still not fully functional. This, in turn, has made it crystal clear that a key part of the Russian military reform has been left unfulfilled and that the ground forces’ overall combat potential (including their ability rapidly to mass forces at a conflict zone) is substantially lower than had been planned by the architects of the reforms.
Furthermore, even if prepositioning were to be fully implemented, the actual combat capabilities of the ground forces’ basic units – the motorised rifle brigades – have suffered a serious decline in recent years, with insufficient artillery firepower the main factor underlying this degradation. A standard heavy or medium brigade possesses thirty-six 152-mm howitzers in two howitzer battalions; six BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket systems in one rocket-artillery battery; and between twelve and twenty-four 120-mm mortars or 120-mm self-propelled guns in two to four artillery batteries of motorised rifle battalions.
This might appear an impressive total, but only at first glance. Of concern is that artillery units have only limited access to precision-guided munitions, forcing these units to rely heavily on massive ‘barrage’ strikes should they need to suppress an enemy’s prepared defences. At present, one brigade’s artillery would be able to suppress – rather than destroy (defined by the Russian military as the neutralisation of 50 per cent of armaments and personnel) – just three platoon defence positions in support of an advancing brigade. This is because a single battery’s concentrated fire is not effective against widely spread defensive positions, thereby forcing artillery units to fire on individual targets, such as command and observation posts, and the firing positions of isolated guns and mortars. The result is that, in the absence of a structure of integrated fire-support helicopter units (which, since 2003, have been under the command of the air force rather than the ground forces), a brigade’s commander can reliably count on artillery only to suppress opposing defences. From this it is clear that, at present, even a fully prepared Russian motorised rifle brigade would be unable to carry out effective offensive operations against the prepared defences of any unit larger than a company.
Nor can it be convincingly argued that Russian brigades could carry out any other kind of operation more effectively – not least because the existing operation-planning procedures, as well as the manuals that regulate them, survived the changes to troop structures imposed as part of the reforms. This has led to a situation in which planning procedures now have to be implemented by a headquarters staff whose numbers have been reduced by half. As such, it would be impossible for today’s brigade operations departments (comprising a mere two officers and three sergeants) to effectively assist brigade commanders in planning any kind of operation whatsoever. (Battalion headquarters are in no better shape – their full structures currently comprise just one officer and one private.) Meanwhile, the current wartime standard for a brigade headquarters of just seventy-three men – including, staggeringly, twenty-five civilians and just thirty-three officers – turned out, during recent large-scale military exercises including Vostok-2010 and Vostok-2013, to be so inadequate that 100–20 officers had to be commandeered from brigades elsewhere to those taking part (twenty to thirty were assigned to the battalion headquarters, and 70–100 to the brigade headquarters).
This all took place in a context in which it was becoming apparent that the long-awaited Sozvezdie-M2 automated command-and-control (C2) system – designed to connect brigade units during combat – was in fact serving to complicate, rather than simplify, commanders’ courses of action. Indeed, as it turned out, the system’s data-exchange protocols – which did not match those of the Akatsiya-M system used by the Russian General Staff to control operations – have not helped to network forces in any way. Meanwhile, the fact that the Sozvezdie-M2 system could not connect directly with brigade air-defence units’ Barnaul-T C2 systems – as originally planned – has also served to seriously downgrade the combat potential of Russian brigades. And, finally, the inability of this system to automatically update commanders’ displays with data on their troops’ actions (with commanders having to do this manually after being sent data via SMS-style messages) undermines the very idea of automated control of brigade operations.
These facts – amongst many others – point to the need to take a more cautious, and nuanced, view of the current level of combat readiness of the Russian armed forces. Indeed, it is clear that seemingly minor details, such as the information-exchange protocols of automated C2 systems, can exert a significant influence on the overall combat capabilities of military units – and thereby the possible future stance of the country to which they belong. Proper attention to these details is therefore essential in order to undertake a realistic assessment of Russia’s military capabilities, and to distinguish the country’s actual from its imagined military might. Such an assessment is of critical importance in appraising the current levels of political-military tension with the West, which have increased – and have the potential to increase further – with Russia’s recent actions in Crimea.
«Банкетный зал» (Banqueting House) — здание Королевского объединённого института оборонных исследований (Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies) в Уайтхолле с фрагментом памятника фельдмаршалу Хейгу перед ним.
«Polite People» Ops in Crimea / Операция «Вежливые Люди» // YouTube Kiril Bekulov. 11.04.2014.
Отчет по итогам выполнения задач отряда № 0900 в период с 22 февраля по 28 марта 2014 года на территории АР Крым
