"Widespread infiltration of the Ukrainian government, military and security services by Russian agents also contributed to disorganisation and poor performance."
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M.N.: The direct transfer of advanced military technology to Ukraine is very risky and unneeded. However the adequate indirect (no transfer of weapons but participation in military planning and operations) assistance from the neighboring Eastern European countries (first of all, Poland) under the umbrella of regional alliance (mini-NATO, in Yatsenyuk term) might be beneficial to all parties. Essentially, Eastern Ukrainian war is a civil war for both Ukraine and ("Greater") Russia, it might be protracted and unresolved until the advantages, both economic and political, of Western style civil management as opposed to crony capitalism and criminal KGB kleptocracy, demonstrated convincingly, in words and deeds, to the elites and the populace. This might require significant Western investments and commitments, both financial and psychological.
Russian infiltration: Widespread infiltration of the Ukrainian government, military and security services by Russian agents also contributed to disorganisation and poor performance. It appears that these agents were able to provide Moscow with detailed information on Ukrainian government and military planning for responding to the conflict. Highly placed military officers whose sympathies were with Russia and the east Ukrainian separatists may also have played a role in disrupting military planning. At the local level, unit commanders who sympathized with the separatist cause withdrew their personnel and turned their equipment over to the insurgents on several occasions. These surrenders provided the means for separatist forces to receive their first parties of heavy weapons and armored vehicles.
Ukrainian military capabilities | Russian Military Reform
Reorganisation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has led to prompt action to remove personnel who have ties to the KGB or the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
The presence of such personnel in the security service is widely considered a threat to the state's ability to prevent terrorist attacks.
Serhiy Ivanov, a prominent blogger and member of the SSU's civil council on lustration, told SETimesthat since the beginning of Russia's incursions into Ukraine, about 2,000 SSU staff have been fired.
"Among them are those who were involved in repressions during the Maidan, those who contributed to the occupation of our territory, people under suspicion of counterintelligence service that they could be recruited by foreign country special service," he said.
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, head of the SSU, said 95 percent of the service's leadership and heads of regional offices were replaced in March and April. Ivanov added that staff from the eastern regions that were retained passed a thorough background check.
"All [SSU] employees from the east followed appropriate procedure. They were tested on the polygraph, operational measures were also implemented to ensure that they are not integrated Russian agents," Ivanov said.
Much is being done to prevent the Ukrainian Security Service from existing as a "KGB or now FSB branch," Ivanov added. Close ties that existed in the past between the SSU and Russian security structures led to the unpleasant reality that much of the SSU staff in Donetsk and Luhansk turned to the terrorists' side when the conflict in the east started.
"The situation is very difficult, complicated," Ivanov said. "Special forces of the Russian Federation prepared a very long time ago and we were under such condition that a lot of SSU employees were recruited by the enemy country."
Ivanov pointed to former SSU counterintelligence chief Volodymyr Byk as an example of Russia's high-level infiltration of Ukraine's security structure. Byk was detained in early November and is suspected of high treason for allegedly assisting Russian diversionary activity in Ukrainian territory.
"If a general of Security Service counterintelligence was arrested, can you imagine how deeply Russian special services worked?" Ivanov said.
The main issue facing the SSU now is preventing saboteurs from planning and conducting diversionary activity in Ukrainian territory. Terrorists are coming to state-controlled areas from the occupied territories and Russia.
One of the ways diversionary groups get into Ukrainian territory is the buffer zone between Ukrainian soldiers and terrorists. Roman Svitan, a former deputy head of the Donetsk regional administration, was captured by terrorists in June and held for three weeks before negotiations led to his release. He said the border between two sides of the conflict is easy to cross.
"SSU is working to neutralise diversionary groups, training is going. But the front line is a sieve," Svitan told SETimes. "One can cross the border between Ukrainian soldiers and terrorists in both directions without any problems."
Oleksandr Skipalskiy, former deputy head of the SSU, said diversionary activity is part of the Russian authorities' plan to destabilise Ukraine.
"Putin's main task now is to destabilise the situation in Ukraine by internal conflicts and sabotage. The use of terrorist diversionary acts will grow," Skipalskiy told SETimes.
In its press briefings, the SSU has pointed out the participation of Russian special-forces personnel in planning diversionary activity in Ukraine and recruiting people for these plans.
"Deeply conspiratorial agent networks of Russian secret service are being uncovered," SSU spokesperson Olena Hitlianska told reporters on December 17th. "They are trying to expand its activities in Ukraine, to organise terrorist attacks in the area of administrative units, sabotage on critical infrastructure objects. Security Service also prevents their plans for terrorist attacks against the military and government officials and against Ukrainian civilians."
On December 19th, the SSU press office reported that the counterintelligence service disrupted an attempt by Russian special services to commit a terrorist attack in Kyiv.
"During the counterintelligence special operation a saboteur was detained who acted according to the instructions of foreign intelligence service on delivering from Luhansk to Kyiv powerful explosive device and leave it in a specified location. Her Russian curators selected for the attack the most crowded place in Kyiv -- Independence Square and government block next to the Presidential Administration of Ukraine," said Markian Lubkivskiy, an advisor to Nalyvaichenko.
According to SSU officials, Russian special service agents often recruit people from the occupied territories to help carry out diversionary activity in Ukraine. Svitan said it is only a matter of time and approach for foreign special services, as recruiters often find effective motives that attract people to become engaged in such activity.
"Motives are different, beginning with the money issue, finishing with the revenge," Svitan said. "Someone in the family was killed by a missile; people think that it was Ukrainian missile. Ideological motives can't be excluded. In each particular case, people have their own motives."
To neutralise terrorist activity, SSU operative groups are actively working in the freed territories. Ivanov said terrorists have left huge arsenals of weapons in the freed territories, and work is on-going to prevent these weapons from getting into the wrong hands.
"There is a confiscation of not just guns or bombs but sometimes DShK [Soviet heavy machine guns], Mukha grenade launchers. This is the inheritance left behind by Russian invaders in the liberated cities," Ivanov said. "There are also existing separatists who remain on the ground. There is no guerrilla movement in liberated territories. But small gangs of those people who have nothing to lose can still act."
What steps should be taken at both the local and state levels to remove Russian elements from Ukraine's security structures? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
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Pro-Russian activists guard the entrance to the seized SBU building in Luhansk during the rally on April 12.
© Anastasia Vlasova
© Anastasia Vlasova
On a morning earlier this year, Ukraine's top intelligence officials woke up to discover that the country's spy agency had been ransacked and torched by intruders who seemed to know what they were looking for. The previous night, it turned out, the country’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, had ordered his operatives to steal a trove of state secrets from Ukraine's Security Service, known as the SBU, before fleeing to Moscow on Feb. 22.
The Kyiv Post is disabling its online comment section due to an increase in trolls, violent comments and other personal attacks. Other news organizations worldwide have taken similar steps for the same reasons. The Kyiv Post regrets having to take this action. The newspaper believes in a robust public debate, but the discussion must be constructive and intelligent. For the time being, the Kyiv Post will allow comments on its moderated Facebook group
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. The newspaper will consider hosting online comments again when circumstances allow. Thank you from the Kyiv Post.
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After a bit of a break, I’m resuming posting my briefs for Oxford Analytica, as always with a three month lag. This was written in early September, just after the conclusion of the ceasefire. (Note that this version is not identical to that published by Oxford Analytica, as I have removed some material that was added by the editorial staff.)
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SIGNIFICANCE: At the start of the conflict in Donbas, the Ukrainian military appeared to be almost completely incapable of defending its territory. Kiev’s forces were unprepared for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and seemed powerless to prevent it. In recent months, it has become a somewhat more effective war-fighting force, though not one that is powerful enough to withstand a full-scale future Russian military invasion. If the current ceasefire fails and Russia intervenes fully in Donbas, the Ukrainian military will not have the capability to defend the country.
Impact
- Ukraine has made significant improvements to its military capabilities, compared to their state at the start of the conflict.
- However, the Ukrainian military is not capable of defeating the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
- Russia will increase military assistance to the extent necessary to prevent the elimination of separatist Donbas enclaves.
ANALYSIS:
At the start of the conflict, Ukraine’s military appeared on paper to be a fairly sizeable force, with almost 130,000 active military personnel, over 1,000 tanks, 370 combat aircraft and helicopters, and almost 2,000 artillery pieces. At the same time, it was notoriously underfunded and in disarray as a result of a recent political decision to end conscription and shift to a fully professional manning model. The total number of usable troops and equipment in the ground forces amounted to 80,000 personnel, 775 tanks, 51 helicopters, fewer than 1,000 artillery pieces and 2,280 armoured personnel carriers.
Military dispositions
These troops were positioned in a manner that showed the Ukrainian military’s history as a legacy Soviet force, with the vast majority of units stationed in western Ukraine and along the southern coast. No units were located in the Luhansk or Donetsk regions. Only a single mechanised brigade was located in neighbouring Kharkiv region, while the largest concentration of Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine was based in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Yanukovich’s neglect of military
Some reports indicated that the size of the combat-ready force was even smaller, with only 6,000 troops fully prepared to fight when the conflict broke out. Other units were not considered combat-ready because of a combination of lack of training and inadequate and poorly maintained equipment.
The Ukrainian military received limited funding throughout the post-Soviet period. This tendency became even more pronounced during Viktor Yanukovich’s presidency. He was more concerned about internal unrest than external threats and therefore increasingly shifted the country’s limited security budget towards internal security forces at the expense of the regular armed forces. As a result, the military budget remained very low, at just over 1% of GDP, throughout Yanukovich’s presidency.
Political chaos hampered military response
In addition to underfunding, Ukrainian forces were initially unprepared to deal with the crisis because of a combination of political chaos and internal subversion. The initial Russian intervention in Crimea took place immediately after the chaotic final stage of the ‘Maidan’ revolution. The newly formed acting Ukrainian government had not yet established its authority in Kiev, much less in the eastern and southern regions that had largely opposed Maidan. It was not prepared to act in response to Russia’s immediate and fast-paced operation in Crimea.
Russian infiltration
Widespread infiltration of the Ukrainian government, military and security services by Russian agents also contributed to disorganisation and poor performance. It appears that these agents were able to provide Moscow with detailed information on Ukrainian government and military planning for responding to the conflict. Highly placed military officers whose sympathies were with Russia and the east Ukrainian separatists may also have played a role in disrupting military planning. At the local level, unit commanders who sympathized with the separatist cause withdrew their personnel and turned their equipment over to the insurgents on several occasions. These surrenders provided the means for separatist forces to receive their first parties of heavy weapons and armored vehicles.
Lack of counter-insurgency training
The Ukrainian military was trained to respond to an invasion and to participate in peacekeeping operations abroad. It had neither plans nor training to fight an insurgency.
For all of these reasons, Ukraine’s military and security forces were unprepared to counter either the Russian military occupation of Crimea or the subsequent emergence of armed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.
Partial resurgence
The Ukrainian military used a unilateral ceasefire in late June to rebuild its command structure, develop new tactics and recruit personnel. Most of the senior military leadership was replaced, with incompetent and compromised generals being forced out in favour of those who had shown the most initiative and/or were seen as loyal to Kiev.
Around this time, the government decided to use military tactics against the separatists. This led to an escalation of the conflict and an increase in civilian casualties, but also allowed it to use regular military units against separatists.
Irregular battalions
Kiev determined that it did not have enough regular military personnel to counter the insurgency in Donbas while simultaneously maintaining a standing force to face potential Russian aggression from Crimea. Kiev began to organise irregular militia battalions. A number of territorial defence battalions, special purpose police battalions, national guard battalions and other independent units have been formed through the recruitment of volunteers. These include several units that have gained some notoriety in the fighting, such as the Azov and Donbas battalions, as well as independent units associated with the Right Sector and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists.
Oligarch armies
Some of these battalions are sponsored by wealthy Ukrainians such as Igor Kolomoisky, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, who allegedly spent millions of dollars organising and arming fighters from Dnipropetrovsk.
Ideological and political battalions
Some of the new battalions are organised around nationalist ideology such as the Azov battalion, while others comprise people who participated in the Maidan protests (the Maidan and Aidar battalions). Additionally, there are some tied to political parties (the Batkivshchyna and Right Sector battalions).
However, the vast majority of the battalions were initially organised as territorial defence units and were only later sent to fight in eastern Ukraine. As of late June, the total approximate strength of these battalions was estimated at 5,600, with the Donbas Battalion the single largest with almost 1,000 fighters. Several of the units suffered major losses in battles in July and August, although in some cases they have also been able to recruit reinforcements.
Popular support for war effort
The parlous state of Ukrainian government finances and the reluctance of Western governments to provide financial and military assistance have necessitated efforts to raise money and provide basic supplies for government forces and especially for irregular pro-government fighters through donations from the Ukrainian population and from the diaspora abroad. To this end, a number of websites and social media resources have been organised to raise money for fighting the conflict.
These efforts have been primarily useful in providing basic supplies for military units, especially the irregular battalions. Such supplies, detailed in frequent reports on assistance websites, consist primarily of medicines, spare parts and maintenance, rather than the purchase of weapons or major equipment. They are not a replacement for regular procurement and recruitment, but have played a role in spurring the government to speed up resupply and increase the financing of regular military units.
Ukrainian internet crowdsourcing efforts have expanded beyond financial assistance. The website Stop Terror in Ukraine has used crowdsourcing to report separatist attacks, troop movements, roadblocks and the seizure of buildings throughout the country. The effectiveness of such efforts remains unclear but they do show that the war effort has widespread popular support.
Military unable to withstand increased Russian assistance
As a result of the improvements in capabilities described above, Ukrainian forces scored substantial victories against the separatists throughout July and in early August. By August 15, separatist forces had lost more than half of the territory they controlled prior to the ceasefire, were divided into several enclaves and had come close to losing the ability to transfer forces among strongholds. Ukrainian military and political leaders believed that they could defeat the separatists and retake all of the territory in eastern Ukraine not under government control within a few weeks.
However, their continued success depended on static levels of Russian assistance to the separatists. The Ukrainian leadership gambled that Russia would not seek to escalate its involvement in the conflict. However, Russia proved them wrong, first by providing greater levels of heavy weapons and volunteer fighters to separatist forces, then by shelling Ukrainian forces from Russian territory in order to prevent the latter from blocking separatists’ access to Russian assistance via the common border and finally by opening a new front in territory previously under the firm control of government forces — around Novoazovsk and Mariupol.
“Ceasefire in name only”
This escalation in Russian military assistance has in recent weeks caused a major shift in the path of the conflict, with Ukrainian forces taking heavy casualties throughout Donbas and losing control of approximately half of the territory they had gained over the summer. The current ceasefire is holding — although Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove of the US Air Force commented in Vilnius recently that the ceasefire was a “cease-fire in name only” — and a return to serious fighting is a distinct possibility. Russian support for the Donbas separatists will remain.
Prospects for Ukrainian forces
As shown by recent events, despite modest improvements in capabilities since the spring, Ukrainian forces are not currently capable to withstand attacks by even small numbers of well-trained regular Russian forces for any length of time. In part, this is the result of the disparity in training received by Ukrainian forces compared to elite Russian forces.
Yet the greater role in Ukrainian forces’ weakness comes from the disparity in equipment. The use of powerful air defence weapons provided by Russia largely negated Ukraine’s air superiority throughout the summer.
CONCLUSION: The Russian government has made clear that it will take steps to ensure that the Ukrainian military does not defeat separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. It will use as much force as it deems necessary to ensure that the separatist enclaves in Donbas remain functional. There is no way for the Ukrainian government to end the conflict through a military victory. Should the ceasefire fail and Ukrainian forces overcome their setbacks and renew their advance into separatist territory, Moscow is likely further to escalate the extent of its direct military assistance.
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