Russia’s Ukraine Campaign in 2024
Part II: What Does Success Look Like?
This article is part two of an examination of how Russia might view ‘success’ in Ukraine in 2024. It is designed to aid thinking about how Ukraine and NATO might construct their campaigns to ensure Russia fails in achieving its goals. The article was written during my visit to Ukraine this week and incorporates information from my discussions here.
Since last year, Russia has been busy reconstituting its forces after the mauling it received from Ukraine in the first year of the war, as well as in the Battle of Bakhmut. And while some have estimated that it might take 5-10 years for Russia to fully reconstitute from its Ukraine losses, this week a U.S. official described an updated assessment which describes how Russia had now almost fully reconstituted.
This does not align with most other assessments of Russian reconstitution however, and we should be cautious taking this at face value. Time will tell how accurate this is.
According to a recent British Defence report, Russia has been recruiting about 30,000 replacements per month. This monthly throughput is probably a more sustainable effort for training and equipping soldiers than irregular, large scale mobilisation efforts. These troops will be replacing lost soldiers in existing units as well as potentially contributing to the formation of new brigades and divisions announced by the Russian defence minister.
Russia, which made key decisions about mobilising people and industry in 2022, is clearly now in a position to replace its losses in a way that Ukraine cannot. This will be a key asymmetric advantage for Russia in 2024 unless Ukrainian mobilisation is effective and the US and others step up materiel assistance.
For some time now, Russian attacks have been part of a larger reconnaissance battle taking place across the front. This has seen Russian forces fighting for information while also fighting to deny information to the Ukrainians. It is a very important preliminary activity for any larger scale offensive. This reconnaissance battle takes place with dismounted and mounted troops, as well as UAVs, electronic warfare and strategic intelligence support from satellites and other sources.
The Russians will probably have been undertaking stockpiling. Food, fuel, water, spare tires and vehicle parts and ammunition are all part of this build up of materiel and supplies to support an army on the advance.
The Russians have also been adapting their tactics, including wider use of long-range glide bombs, as part of their offensive activities. Although, whether they have developed the new warfighting concepts necessary to achieve operational surprise, and breakthrough the Ukrainian defensive lines in an era of greater battlefield transparency, remains to be seen.
With this as context, what might success in Russia’s 2024 Ukraine campaign look like?
Measures of Russian Success
In part one, I described the rationale for having measures of success for Russia in 2024. I also listed five principles for their development and application. Success can be measured at different levels and over different timescales.
Before I describe the probable Russian measures of success, I wish to offer a quick recap of the relevant four levels of war. Each measure describes which of these level they are most applicable to.
The tactical level is where battles and other forms of engagements between opposing military forces are conceived, planned, and executed in order to achieve military objectives. Tactical forces employ tactics to achieve the outcomes they have been given, informed by a mission statement from a superior headquarters.
The operational level is where tactical objectives and actions are sequenced and orchestrated (often as campaigns) to achieve military and strategic objectives. Importantly, much of the prioritization for allocation of forces, logistic support, intelligence, transport, and interdomain collaboration takes place at this level. It acts as the interface between the tactical and strategic levels of warfare. This is a level of war in which Russia probably has an advantage over Ukraine.
The next level is the strategic level of war. The strategic level of war is about turning political objectives into action at the operational and tactical levels across multiple theatres as well as in non-physical domains such as influence operations and cyber activity.
Then, there is the political level. This is the level at which political objectives are formed, and where resources are decided upon that permit military organisations to act strategically, operationally and tactically. But political effectiveness is also about gaining the support of a population, building and sustaining alliances, and influencing opinion inside and beyond one’s national borders.
Measure 1: Russia is able to neutralise Ukrainian strategic strike activities. (Strategic and operational levels, some political impact). Given the impasse on the ground, one of the principal means that Ukraine has to hurt Russia politically and to hinder its war-making potential is the increasingly potent strategic strike complexes that have evolved over the past two years. In some respects, there are three different Ukrainian strike complexes that the Russians will seek to neutralise; the Navy’s maritime strike complex in the Black Sea; the Intelligence communities strike complex; and the Ukrainian Armed Forces broader strike complex. If Russia neutralises or degrades this Ukrainian capability, Russia will reduce Ukraine’s warfighting capacity, and negatively impact Ukrainian strategic influence activities. Russian success in this area would also preserve Russia’s ability to generate revenue through energy exports.
Measure 2: Russia is able to destroy or degrade Ukrainian tactical and operational reserves, C2 and logistics over the course of 2024 (tactical, operational and strategic impacts – medium term). The Russians will seek to limit Ukraine’s capability to respond to Russian ground and air attacks throughout 2024. Therefore, finding and neutralising mobile Ukrainian ground force reserves is an important Russian objective. And just as the identification and neutralisation of reserves is important, so too is the identification of Ukrainian tactical headquarters. Their destruction or degradation in effectiveness helps to further hinder Ukrainian units that are already suffering manpower shortages, while degrading the cohesion of Ukrainian defensive operations. At the same time, identification of Ukrainian logistics – especially artillery and air defence ammunition stocks – will be vital in Russia sustaining and enhancing its current firepower advantage.
Measure 3: Russia seizes additional Ukrainian territory (tactical and operational, but with significant political ramifications). Underpinned by tactical and operational battlefield successes, seizing additional large parts of Ukrainian territory will be a key measure of success for Russian offensives. Over the past several months, Russia has been able to grind out small advances in the east and south of Ukraine. According to @War_Mapper, Russia has captured about 55 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in March 2024. To continue, Russia will need to attack and break through Ukraine’s newly developed defensive zones created in eastern and southern Ukraine. Given current manpower shortages, Ukraine will need to choose between sustaining its army and holding ground. Achieving both this year will be very difficult. The Russians will obviously want to achieve both but will certainly put pressure on Ukraine to at least withdraw from some areas under pressure. This will support their strategic narrative of inevitable Russian victory and seek to influence Ukraine’s donors.
Measure 4: Russia decreases the number and impact of Ukrainian attacks against Crimea (Operational, strategic and political – medium term). Making Crimea untenable for Russian military forces is a Ukrainian objective and President Zelensky has been clear that this is one of the Ukrainian war termination conditions. They are making progress towards this which Russia will seek to arrest. They will wish to do so because it removes a campaign where the Ukrainians are successful, and like seizing ground, supports Russia’s strategic narrative of inevitable victory. But Crimea is also a vital logistic hub for Russian naval and ground forces. Degrading Ukraine’s capacity to attack headquarters, airfields and logistics hubs there will support future Russian ground and maritime operations.
Measure 5: Russia captures or destroys Ukrainian forces (tactical and operational, but with political and strategic ramifications). Related to the recapture of its territory is the capture or destruction of Ukrainian forces. The Russians want to be beat Ukraine on the battlefield and understand that Ukraine can less afford casualties than Russia can. Successful Russian offensive operations will seek to continue reducing the quantity of Ukrainian deployed ground forces, particularly before the impacts of Ukrainian mobilisation are realised. This leads to other opportunities for the Russians. Russian destruction of Ukrainian ground forces this year will compromise Ukrainian capacity to conduct offensives in 2025. Clearly this seeks to degrade Ukrainian fighting power in the short term, but it could have a significant impact on longer term Ukrainian military potential and have an effect on the thinking of Western politicians.
Measure 6: Russian misinformation and other influence activities degrade the cohesion of Ukrainian society (political and strategic). Russia is currently undertaking a broad array of measures that are designed to fracture Ukrainian society and to undermine trust in their government and military. It will continue to amplify messaging about corruption and to decrease the willingness of Ukrainians to serve in the military. These efforts are supported by Russian ‘terror bombing’ with drones, missiles and glide bombs against civilian targets which, among other objectives, aim to terrorise Ukrainians into leaving their country. Russia will see a successful 2024 as one in which it has progressed these activities.
Measure 7: External observers of the war, whether they support Ukraine or not, believe Russia’s 2024 offensives have been a success (political and strategic). Not only must Russia achieve tactical and operational success in its operations, foreign leaders and citizens in the West and beyond, will need to think Russia has succeeded. As we have relearned throughout this war, perceptions of success or otherwise are vital – especially for Ukraine. The ongoing Russian misinformation campaign will be central to tell the story of Russian ‘achievements’ during their offensive activities on the ground and in the air. Russia will hope that stories of Russian success, which only need a small element of success, will impact Ukrainian morale and the ongoing support for Ukraine. Russian successes will also be used in Chinese narratives beyond Europe.
As has been the case throughout the war, the Russian efforts to achieve these objectives will be accompanied by the systemic targeting of Ukrainians through murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, looting, civil infrastructure destruction and intimidation. These are not the actions of bad apples; it is a systemic approach that has been embraced by the entire Russian military institution over the course of the war. Indeed, the reality of the fabled Gerasimov Doctrine is that it is actually the foundational theory for the full range of criminal actions that complement Russian military endeavours.
Inducing Failure in Russia’s 2024 Ukraine Campaign
As I highlighted in part one of this article, by understanding how Russia might measure success in 2024, Ukraine and NATO might then construct defeat mechanisms that prevent Russia from achieving success in the seven areas I described above, or in other aspects of Russian military operations.
The key defeat mechanisms of destruction, dislocation, degradation and disorientation all come into play in the development of tactical, operational and strategic methods to induce failure in Russia’s 2024 campaign and deny it the success it seeks. One example of how these four defeat mechanisms might be applied is show below in a table from Frank Hoffman’s 2021 article on this topic.
Ultimately, much more detailed planning, execution and adaptation will be necessary to defeat Russia’s ability to make progress in the seven areas of military endeavour described above. But the theory of defeat mechanisms is a useful conceptual starting point for this work. And understanding Russia’s potential objectives is a key foundation for this work.
Success and Failure: We Will Know Soon
It will not be long until we can put these measures into action. The Russian military has been on the attack for several months and may well step up the intensity and breadth of its offensive activities in the coming months.
The objective of these two articles on measuring success has been to provide some sense of what strategic success looks like for Russia in the coming months. It is not an exclusive list. There are probably many sub-elements of each measure, as well as other measures that I have not thought of. More importantly, these measures of success can build a foundation upon which Ukrainian and NATO defeat mechanisms for Russia might be developed.