by Associate Professor, Lt.Col. Juha Kukkola (D.Mil.Sc.)

Introduction

Russian military-theoretical views, at least at the tactical and operational levels, clashed with the reality of war when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine failed to achieve its initial aims and the ‘special military operation’ turned into a years-long state-on-state war. Theory did not explain what had happened, nor did it provide answers on how, in practice, to win the war in which Russia had become stuck.

For example, Colonel General V. B. Zarudnitsky, Chief of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, argued in 2022 (VM 7/22) that Russian military science was lagging behind practice and developing too slowly, while defending the role of theory in the systematic development of the military. Incidentally, he also claimed that military science was based on dialectical materialism and on identifying the laws (законы) and rules (закономерности) of war. Not such a fresh take in this day and age.

This rather long blog text investigates how Russian military scholars writing for the leading Russian military-academic journal Military Thought (Военная мысль) discussed the practical and theoretical sides of military science and art between February 2022 and March 2026. I have selected texts by leading and authoritative military scholars and officers from all branches and services, focusing on the strategic and operational levels of war and warfare. I have analysed how these military men have interpreted Russia’s changing military-political environment, the current and future character of war, and what guidance they have offered for the development of the Russian Armed Forces. My aim is to offer an interpretation of these issues for interested readers who may not have the time or access needed to read Russian military-academic writings.

A word of caution is necessary. My sampling methods have not been airtight, and I am well aware that some of the selected texts are propagandistic and may even have been written for deceptive purposes. This text has not been peer-reviewed. Also, the Military Thought does not present a single coherent doctrine and allows some free professional debate. However, I do believe that I have managed to capture the main narratives and ideas influencing current Russian military thought. I have read all the Russian language texts myself, and I have not used any kind of language model to interpret them. For copyright and platform-related reasons, I refer to the Military Thought issues in which the texts were published using the following notation: VM[issue]/[year].

Thoughts on The Military-Political and Military-Strategic Environments

When Russian military scholars describe current and future war and warfare, they mostly present lists of phenomena or trends (тенденции) that bear little relation to any systematic or transparent analysis conducted in their papers. A customary statement such as ‘based on an analysis of past military experience’, followed perhaps by a limited examination of how the ‘collective West’ thinks about and conducts war, is enough to form the backbone of ‘military-theoretical analysis’. This may sound somewhat flippant, but articles in Military Thought rarely discuss the Russian way of warfare except through references to the achievements of the Second World War, nor do they adopt anything approaching an objective or neutral perspective.

Over the past four years, Russian military-political analysis has proceeded from ‘the fact’ that the United States and its allies—variously described as proxies, satraps or partners—are out to get Russia: to weaken it, contain it and ultimately destroy it from within (VM6/2022; VM9/2023). The so-called ‘collective West’, portrayed as hegemonic and neo-colonialist, is said to instigate conflicts in the ‘Russian borderlands’ or ‘post-Soviet countries’ in order to create problems for Russia, weaken its influence and seize its resources.

According to Russian military scholars and senior generals, the ‘collective West’ is pursuing the same policy against China, which makes Russia and China natural partners (VM9/2023; VM10/2025; VM11/2025). Interestingly, China is never presented as a challenge or threat, but neither is it portrayed as a trustworthy, stable and long-term ally. It is simply another great power, like Russia itself, with which Russia can cooperate because the two countries share a common adversary and, at least in the Russian view, a broadly similar vision of the future international order.

In these military-political analyses, Russia’s own actions are rarely, if ever, examined. Negative developments happen to Russia not because of what it does, but because ‘some countries’ actively want them to happen.

Several articles referred to an apparently influential book published in 2021 by a group of authors from the Center for Military-Strategic Research of the Academy of the General Staff. In the book, they proposed three types of future military conflict based on differences in the opponents’ levels of technological development (VM6/2022). These conflicts were essentially counterterrorism and counterinsurgency wars, local or regional wars between states, and large-scale global wars involving the possible use of nuclear weapons. These were wars based on the open and destructive use of military force, rather than the hybrid wars described by so many at the time. Apparently, Russia could avoid such wars through a strategy of active defence—that is, by neutralising threats through complex means—or through a strategy of limited actions, meaning the deployment of limited contingents of the Armed Forces to distant military theatres to protect its national interests. Compared with the views presented below, this was a fairly traditional take on the future character of war.

A more ‘traditional’ view, reflecting Russian military writings from the 2000s and 2010s, was offered in mid-2022 (VM6/2022) by Lieutenant General Serzhantov, Deputy Chief for Research at the Military Academy of the General Staff, and two co-authors in an article on ‘the transformation of war’. Writing amid Russia’s conventional war against Ukraine, they argued that future wars would combine military and non-military means and that the pre-war phase would be decisive, as opponents sought to weaken each other as much as possible. This would be followed by a short active phase, possibly involving non-contact warfare conducted by high-tech, mobile and independently operating joint force groupings.

Serzhantov et al. repeatedly stressed that future wars would involve armed force. Yet they ultimately argued that every war was unique and would probably combine all available asymmetric, non-linear and illegal means. Their account of the transformation of war was therefore rather muddled: it encompassed almost everything. Interestingly, what they described closely resembled a revolution in military affairs, although in Putin’s Russia openly advocating any kind of revolution might not be the wisest career move.

The Russian Navy has traditionally thought in strategic terms. In spring 2023, its then Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Evmenov, argued that the United States and its allies were using military power to preserve their hegemony, deny Russia its great-power status, obstruct its economic and military development, and defeat it in Ukraine (VM5/2023). The United States and NATO were increasing their presence near Russia’s borders, expanding and developing their naval forces, and threatening Russia’s claims to the continental shelf and maritime routes. They were also developing long-range precision-strike capabilities and missile defence systems that could undermine Russia’s status as a nuclear power. Russia was being surrounded and threatened—and, of course, therefore needed a strong Navy.

The aforementioned Zarudnitsky claimed in 2023 that ‘military conflicts between states involving the large-scale use of exclusively military force are becoming an anachronism’ (VM11/2023). He added that states sought to minimise costs and preserve as much enemy infrastructure as possible so that they could later exploit the adversary’s resources. This showed how firmly the Military Academy of the General Staff still adhered to a view of future war developed over the previous two decades—even as Russia was engaged in a highly conventional war against another state and had begun a campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

By late 2025, Zarudnitsky had somewhat revised his views (VM10/2025). He proposed a concept of ‘new types of hybrid wars’ in which armed force played a central role but was supported and enhanced by indirect and non-military means. This marked a clear departure from the views advanced by many Russian military scholars in the 2000s and 2010s, according to which non-military means were decisive and ‘wars’ could even be won without conventional military force. There was nothing surprising about this change. Russia had been at war for almost four years.

Traditional views nevertheless persisted. Colonel General Kuzmenko, Deputy Chief of the Military Academy of the General Staff, wrote in 2025 that the United States and its allies were waging hybrid war against Russia (VM11/2025). Claims of Russian aggression were lies used to justify strengthening NATO, which the alliance was preparing to employ against Russia. The United States and its allies were ‘deterring’ (сдерживать)—that is, preventing—Russia from expanding its influence. War did not necessarily involve the armed and violent use of force.

As the war in Ukraine continued, systematic and comprehensive analyses of Russia’s military-strategic environment were apparently replaced by politically imposed frameworks for explaining the world and the problems Russia faced. These frameworks attempted to reconcile old and new ideas without acknowledging Russia’s responsibility for the situation in which it had become entangled.

Admiral Igor Kostyukov, Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff—the GRU—also weighed in in spring 2025 (VM2/2025). He argued that NATO was the primary military threat to Russia and was conducting indirect actions against it through non-military instruments and the ‘puppet regime in Kyiv’. According to Kostyukov, these actions were intended to harm, contain or even destroy Russia, while NATO was preparing for a large-scale war against Russia. Russia was therefore compelled to develop its defence capabilities, deter the West from launching a military attack, conduct strategic deterrence, and expose aggressive plans and provocations.

Like many others, Kostyukov claimed that the West was seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This implied that such a defeat would threaten Russia’s core national interests and require a response. One could argue that this was straightforward deterrence signalling: make us fail, and we will hurt you.

Many Russian writers argue that a transformation (трансформация) is taking place in both international relations and warfare (VM3/2024; VM10/2025). At the international level, this transformation concerns the emergence of a multipolar world—that is, Russia and China challenging the United States or the ‘neo-colonialist West’. At the level of warfare, this transformation encompasses everything from hybrid warfare to the growing use of space, long-range precision weapons, AI, robotics and mental warfare—the Russian interpretation of cognitive warfare. It is possible that Russian generals are describing changes in the underlying premises of Russian military doctrine, which has not been publicly updated for more than a decade.

When one reads Russian texts, it becomes clear that Russian academics have incorporated Western concepts—such as hybrid warfare, soft power, the grey zone, asymmetry, indirect action, critical infrastructure, network-centric warfare, the decision-making cycle, decentralisation, precision weapons, information warfare, cyber operations, transformation, multidomain operations, integration, synchronisation, mobility, adaptation and logistics—into their discussions to such an extent that it is becoming difficult to determine whether they are using these concepts in their original sense or to describe something else (VM6/2022; VM10/2025). This tendency has been noted by previous studies. Interestingly, Chinese theoretical discussions, apart from references to Sunzi, do not feature in Russian military writings at all.

A good example of amalgamation of Russian and Western concepts is the article ‘Transformation of Armed Confrontation: The Conditionality of a New Trend in Military Art’ (VM3/2024), which combines the Western concept of multidomain operations with Russian concepts of hybrid war and controlled chaos. Somehow, a Western concept for conducting military operations becomes a strategy of insidious global domination.

Despite this cross-pollination, a distinct Soviet military vocabulary remains firmly embedded in the texts. Soviet-era concepts are used fluently and adapted to contemporary phenomena, including the laws of warfare, the military-political situation and struggle (противоборство).

A brief note on the Western concept of multidomain operations (многосферность) before turning to operational and tactical issues. Several Russian military scholars have discussed the concept and described warfare conducted simultaneously across multiple domains or environments (VM6/2022; VM3/2024; VM9/2024; VM11/2025). In practice, however, they often use the term more as a military-academic catchword than as a clearly defined analytical or practical concept, much as they used network-centric warfare in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Everyone seems to agree that multidomain operations are important, yet they are supposedly to be conducted independently by the individual branches (sic!)

Russian military-academic circles are, and have long been, quite open to external ideas, especially American ones. This does not, however, mean that the original meaning of these concepts survives translation.

Thoughts on The Character of Warfare at The Operational and Tactical Levels: The Aerospace Forces, Navy, and Independent Services

Throughout the period from 2022 to 2026, Russian military-academic texts showed a certain reluctance to acknowledge the realities of the war. Many appeared to respond to problems that were barely mentioned, while arguing for different development priorities for the Armed Forces. The individual branches were, so to speak, defending their institutional turf by preparing to fight the next war.

The Air Force, for example, doubled down on strike capabilities and independent operations. In early 2023, Major General A. G. Semenov, Chief of the Zhukov Air and Space Defence Academy, and two co-authors argued that, at the beginning of a large-scale war, the Aerospace Forces should operate independently to defeat an enemy aerospace attack (VM1/2023). At a later stage, they could be partially subordinated to the ground forces in a Theatre of Military Actions (TVD), but only if absolutely necessary.

Similarly, in mid-2022, Major General V. V. Andreev, a department head at the Air Force Academy, and three co-authors argued that future war would require air supremacy and take the form of non-contact warfare (VM6/2022). The Air Force would need powerful single-service force groupings, perhaps capable of multidomain operations—a concept they did not define—and large numbers of UAVs to support Russia’s strategies of active defence, limited actions and even first strike. Andreev later argued that future conflicts would require transport and strike aviation, UAVs, air-superiority capabilities and long-range strike capabilities (VM6/2023).

Colonels O. V. Ermolin, H. P. Zubov and M. V. Fomin argued in early 2023 for the creation of strike aviation groupings assigned to specific TVDs and Strategic Directions (SDs) (VM2/2023). These groupings would be supported by an information-reconnaissance space (информационно-разведывательное пространство) comprising satellites, UAVs, AEW&C aircraft and other reconnaissance and surveillance assets. The authors suggested that forces of this kind could almost win the next war by themselves. Although they acknowledged some problems in the conduct of the current war, their main concern was clearly to advocate a future role for operational-tactical aviation.

In early 2024, the then Air Force Commander, Colonel General S. V. Dronov, and a group of co-authors offered some frank criticism of the Air Force’s actions in the ‘special military operation’. They identified problems with IFF systems, a shortage of precision-guided weapons, and the inability of operational-tactical aviation to operate in the enemy’s operational depth. The main remedies proposed by Dronov et al. were new multirole aircraft, improved surveillance capabilities, and the integration of AI into almost everything. General Dronov was dismissed a couple of months after the article was published.

Only the most recent articles have described the actual role of the Air Force in the current war. This consists primarily of direct support to the ground forces through glide-bomb, missile and rocket strikes conducted by groups of two to four aircraft or helicopters at a time (VM3/2026). This highlights the gap between the operational reality of the Russian Air Force and its aspirations.

The role and necessity of the airborne forces (Воздушно-десантные войска – VDV) generated considerable discussion from 2023 onwards (VM5/2023; VM6/2023). The difficulties of conducting airborne operations under modern conditions were acknowledged, although little direct analysis of concrete failures in Ukraine was offered. Those failures that were discussed were blamed on poor planning or on other branches and services. Problems concerning survivability and combat capability were nevertheless recognised.

Representatives of the Military Academy of the General Staff argued that the capabilities of the air assault forces should be strengthened despite their significant failures in 2022 (VM1/2025). They continued to advocate the use of airmobile forces as rapid-reaction forces or operational reserves in both offensive and defensive operations, despite the evidence from the war. The authors effectively neutralised criticism by declaring that air assault operations required air superiority and the suppression of 90 per cent of enemy air defences. One must wonder whether, under such conditions, the war could be won by other, more cost-effective means.

On the naval side, Admiral Evmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, wrote—or, in practice, merely listed—in mid-2023 the trends, circumstances and directions affecting the development of naval warfare (VM7/2023). Although he did not directly discuss the experience of the ‘special military operation’, he made it clear that defence against unmanned systems should be a joint task, that deception was needed to improve protection, that the Navy had an important strike role, and that it required more reserves, capabilities and bases. In effect, he was acknowledging that the Navy could not deal with the drone threat on its own.

In late 2023, a few months before he was dismissed as CINC and sent to head the Kuznetsov Naval Academy, Evmenov argued that future naval warfare would be characterised by high-intensity operations, new methods, and asymmetric and unconventional measures (VM12/2023). These would be used to prevent the enemy from seizing the initiative, imposing unfavourable conditions and continuing military operations. His position had clearly become more proactive.

However, judging by the Russian Navy’s operations against Ukraine, Evmenov’s ideas did not correspond with the Navy’s actual conduct. In this later article, he was clearly describing how the Navy should have fought, or perhaps how it wished to fight, rather than explaining why it had failed and what it could realistically do to turn the tide in the current war.

Evmenov’s successor, Admiral A. A. Moiseev, advocated a more aggressive approach (VM5/2024). He argued that the Navy needed a unified information space—an objective that had been on the agenda since the 2000s—better protection against unmanned systems, and robotic systems of its own. He also advocated the return of tactical nuclear weapons to the Navy and an offensive doctrine emphasising strike capabilities. Moiseev promoted a balanced fleet—Admiral Gorshkov, anyone?—blue-water strike capabilities and independent operations. Perhaps he was simply responding to the disbandment of the Operational-Strategic Commands and the enhanced operational status of the Navy Main Command. Clearly, like his predecessor, he was also asking for more resources.

The Strategic Missile Forces did not want to be left out. Major General R. O. Nogin, Deputy Head of the Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Forces, argued that changes in warfare—including reconnaissance, sabotage, information-psychological influence, cyberattacks and UAVs—posed a direct threat to the missile forces and required new operational-level support capabilities and organisational structures (VM11/2024). In reality, the RVSN had little reason to worry, given the Kremlin’s fascination with strategic nuclear weapons and new types of ballistic missiles.

Electronic-warfare forces have also been consistently promoted. Their pre-war emphasis on countering network-centric warfare appears to have been vindicated, although only after the mass use of drones had begun. Almost every article now discusses the use of electronic warfare to protect Russian assets against enemy unmanned systems, while some also envisage a role for it in multidomain offensive operations. More broadly, Russian writings place considerable emphasis on the effects and potential of new technology. Precision weapons, satellites, electronic warfare, hypersonic weapons, automated systems, robots and AI-based solutions are frequently presented as answers to operational problems, demonstrating a strong interest in the material development of warfare.

Space as a domain of warfare is of considerable interest to Russian military scholars. It represents both a threat and an opportunity. The militarisation of space is, of course, blamed on the West, but now that the cat is out of the bag, Russia should be free to develop whatever offensive and defensive capabilities it considers necessary. Indeed, space warfare requires a reconsideration of all previous organisational arrangements (VM3/2023). The air and space domains are now even more closely connected, while space itself is linked to all other domains (сфера) (VM6/2022; VM12/2023; VM10/2025). Space as a potential military domain is old news, but the war against Ukraine has crystallised its importance for reconnaissance, positioning and communications, as well as the denial of these functions through ‘space weapons’.

In the writings of Russian military scholars, failures in Ukraine are either ignored, attributed to ‘objective and subjective reasons’, or addressed only through cursory references to the wars of the previous decade as sources of lessons. Although almost every article presents long lists of changing trends, creative ideas and concrete proposals for operational development are often absent. Deception and maskirovka are regularly mentioned, but usually as means of protecting forces rather than as instruments for achieving victory.

Some bolder arguments have nevertheless appeared. At least one article directly advocated the creation of autonomous-systems forces (VM6/2025), while another proposed the establishment of cyber forces (VM3/2025). Rear Admiral S. N. Miasoedov argued that the Navy needed unmanned-systems units for operational and operational-tactical tasks. The time when such systems could be employed individually had passed (VM12/2024).

Thoughts on The Character of Warfare at The Operational and Tactical Levels: The Combined Arms Actions (Ground Forces)

On the Ground Forces side, early discussions of the character of modern and future warfare and operational art were still largely based on pre-2022 ideas. This remained the case until 2024. Ground Forces operational art was understood to centre on the use of operational-level joint force groupings (VM11/2022). The factors shaping its development included the use of non-military means; advances in weapons technology; effects throughout the entire depth of the enemy’s deployment; the use of forces across all domains (сфера); high mobility; the targeted use of fires to destroy the enemy; shorter operational timeframes; dispersed units; network-based approaches; private military companies; and indirect and asymmetric means. The list also included cooperation with other armed services and ministries, the peacetime employment of the Armed Forces, cyber and information operations, and the overall integration of the combat power of all services and branches. Much like the concept of multidomain operations, however, this integration was not explained in Russian texts.

Military scholars from the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation began to address the operational, or army-level, challenges emerging from the battlefields of Ukraine in late 2022 and early 2023 (VM12/2022; VM4/2023). Their approaches, however, remained quite traditional, and such articles were few and far between. Traditional operational tasks and phases, informed by the doctrine of deep operations in both offence and defence, continued to shape their analysis of the evolution of operational art.

Nevertheless, they recognised that massing and concentrating troops had become a major liability; small-unit tactics had begun to shape operational art; dispersion and decentralisation were necessary; the concepts of reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire systems (RUK/ROK) were maturing; and the growing use of UAVs could no longer be ignored. Interestingly, some representatives of the Combined Arms Academy appeared to regard the destruction of the enemy by fire as an operational solution to a strategic problem. In doing so, they largely ignored the need for air, information, naval, and command-and-control superiority in support of ground operations.

The strategic implications of Russia’s failure to achieve a quick and inexpensive victory began to sink in by 2023. In an article published that year, Lieutenant General A. V. Serzhantov and Colonel D. A. Pavlov discussed Svechin’s strategies of destruction (стратегия сокрушения) and starvation (стратегия измора) (VM11/2023). The article was essentially an attempt to legitimise the use of the starvation strategy against Ukraine, disguised as a theoretical discussion. Serzhantov and Pavlov did not offer any genuinely new ideas. Even before the war, Russian military scholars had proposed that an adversary could be forced to surrender through conventional long-range precision strikes against its critical infrastructure and economy, combined with non-military measures.

By 2024, lessons from the ‘special military operation’ had begun to penetrate—or had been allowed to penetrate—Russian military-academic discussion. In autumn 2024, Colonel General Trushin, Chairman of the Military Scientific Committee of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, discussed lessons from the operation and explained how, in his view, learning from military experience should be organised (VM8/2024). Trushin was clearly criticising military theory for failing to provide adequate guidance for military practice. His account nevertheless showed that the Russians had been analysing the characteristics of the operation and had recognised the challenges they faced.

Six months later, in spring 2025, Trushin continued to criticise military theory for failing to grasp the effects of technological development, including advances in reconnaissance, means of fire destruction, robotisation, electronic warfare, and command-and-control systems (VM4/2025). He praised the creativity of Russian field commanders in developing the practical side of military art—a claim that, from an outside perspective, appears somewhat too generous. Trushin ultimately advocated long-range strikes throughout the enemy’s depth, the dispersion of troops, the destruction of the enemy by fire, and advances conducted by temporarily concentrating forces to gain an advantage before dispersing them again.

Interestingly, several senior figures—including Trushin, Zarudnitsky, Lieutenant General A. V. Serzhantov, Deputy Chief of the Military Academy of the General Staff, and Colonel General A. V. Kuzmenko, former commander of the Western Military District—opened the way for a more objective and analytical operational-level discussion of lessons from the ‘special military operation’. Their articles appeared between autumn 2024 and spring 2025 (VM8/2024; VM9/2024; VM2/2025; VM4/2025; VM10/2025; VM11/2025).

These articles provided quite detailed analyses of the operational-level problems facing the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. Visions of hybrid and non-contact warfare were increasingly replaced by the grinding reality of Ukraine’s fields and tree lines. Defensive operations, dispersion instead of massing, repeated shallow offensives, the use of storm troops and small-unit tactics, pinprick attacks and pressure tactics, attrition, urban combat, and robotic systems now formed the essence of operational art.

The doctrines of deep battle and deep operations were increasingly challenged by the transparency of the battlefield. Phased operations were becoming a thing of the past. Echeloned, static defences were to be replaced by networked and modular deployments of fortified forces capable of using RUK/ROK systems to destroy an advancing enemy with precision fires. Tasks and decisions once considered tactical had acquired operational significance and were increasingly managed at the operational level. The military-academic leadership also formally promoted new types of organisation, ranging from mobile air-defence and UAV teams to storm units.

These accounts nevertheless remained cautious when discussing the reasons for failure. Serzhantov and Pavlov, for example, claimed that the aim of the military operation had been to liberate ‘certain territories’ (VM9/2024). One of the most recent articles on the use of storm units merely referred to the limited forces available and ‘other factors’ that had led to the employment of storm troops in assaults on urban areas (VM3/2026).

Two recurring themes in many of the articles, regardless of service or branch, have been the geographical expansion of military operations and their increased tempo, or compressed timeframes (VM6/2022; VM4/2023). As Russian military science has traditionally relied heavily on mathematical calculations (nomograms), this means that existing field regulations, together with their tables and charts, require substantial revision.

Unmanned and robotic systems have permeated Russian military-academic texts since 2023. They are mentioned in almost every article examining the character of warfare at the tactical or operational level. Russian military scholars have embraced them as tactical anti-tank weapons, precision-strike assets, mine-laying platforms, supply carriers, communications platforms, integral components of RUK/ROK systems, independent reconnaissance and surveillance assets, and tools for achieving command-and-control superiority (VM2/2025; VM4/2025). The Navy needs its own naval robotic systems (морские робототехнические комплексы) (VM12/2024), as does the Air Force (VM1/2024). In the future, there might even be forms of military action—operations, battles and so forth—based primarily on unmanned systems (VM9/2024). At the same time, the threat posed by unmanned systems is acute. According to Russian scholars, new combined and joint (межвидовой) measures are required to defend against them.

Unmanned systems are partly responsible for the dramatic increase in battlefield transparency (прозрачность), which representatives of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation had recognised as an operational-level problem by spring 2023 (VM4/2023). They recommended a dispersed positional defence at the operational level, combined with manoeuvre defence. At least according to open sources, these initial ideas did not correspond closely to the defensive lines that subsequently developed in southeastern Ukraine between 2023 and 2026.

The increased transparency of the battlefield prompted a discussion about the future of armoured forces, much as it had in the West. In late 2023, at least one faculty head at the Combined Arms Academy argued that tanks remained relevant because of their high level of protection and firepower (VM11/2023). He even concluded his article by reminding readers of the great tank battles fought in the Middle East during the 1960s and 1970s. He did temper his argument by acknowledging the importance of terrain and crew training. Unfortunately, he failed to mention drones, which would significantly change the character of warfare in 2024.

The change in thinking about the use of indirect fires has been significant. The ‘fire destruction of the enemy’ (огневое поражение противника), previously discussed by Amund Ostflaten, is a recurring theme. In essence, it means weakening, halting and destroying—or sufficiently disorganising—the enemy through RUK and ROK systems operating at a distance, with little or no direct contact between opposing forces. RUK and ROK enable continuous, systematic and precise fire effects throughout the depth of the enemy’s deployment. Massed fire preparations and rolling barrages along the axis of advance belong to the past. Indirect fire is now delivered by individual weapons against individual targets with UAV support. Future artillery formations would combine several types of weapon so that they could conduct any required fire mission (VM4/2023; VM9/2024; VM4/2025). The Soviet-era pair of concepts, RUK and ROK, has apparently finally acquired practical substance.

One of the main concepts appearing in Russian texts is command-and-control superiority (превосходство в управлении) (VM2/2025). It is to be achieved by disrupting the adversary’s systems while protecting and enabling Russia’s own through resilience and decentralisation. The concept appears to have developed from the idea of information superiority, although Soviet and Russian writers were already discussing command-and-control warfare in the early 1990s. The driving force is technology rather than doctrine, combined with the possibility of exploiting the adversary’s weaknesses to achieve victory at the lowest possible cost. Incidentally, (and perhaps ironically) vulnerabilities in field communications systems had been identified by 2023 (VM9/2023), although the proposed tactical and technical remedies did not include mobile phones, Telegram or Starlink.

Another issue that has increasingly appeared in Russian writings is the need to develop a genuinely integrated air-defence system capable of countering large-scale drone and missile attacks (VM11/2025). This challenge has also been recognised within the Navy, where some authors have proposed creating a unified air-defence system for naval task forces (VM6/2024). The need to integrate the numerous air-defence elements of the Russian Armed Forces has arguably been brought to the fore by Ukraine’s large-scale, targeted UAV attacks. If the return to the divisional structure, the disbandment of the Operational-Strategic Commands, and the re-establishment of the Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts are any indication, the return of air-defence districts—and perhaps even a separate air-defence branch—may not be far away.

Interestingly, the ideas of asymmetry, indirect action and military cunning, which had been so prevalent in writings from the 2010s, gradually lost ground in operational-level discussions. They did sometimes appear in the strategic-level writings on the character of war (VM6/2022; VM7/2023; VM11/2025). Operational- and tactical-level texts became more concerned with concrete technological and doctrinal developments and devoted greater attention to deception (обман) and operational and tactical maskirovka (VM4/2023; VM6/2023; VM7/2023; VM1/2024).

V. I. Orliansky’s article on military cunning is perhaps the only one to discuss deception seriously at the operational level (VM12/2022). It was, however, highly theoretical, somewhat out of step with the course of the war, and sharply critical of how military cunning was treated in field regulations. Nevertheless, the importance of surprise has apparently not been forgotten: one of the most recent issues (VM5/2026) includes a reprinted article by Marshal of the Armoured Troops Pavel Rotmistrov on the role of surprise in modern war. Perhaps someone in the General Staff is still thinking about how military art might deliver victory in Ukraine.

Then again, instead of publishing new discussions of asymmetric action, Military Thought has reprinted articles from the 1940s and 1950s on strategic offensive operations, as if to demonstrate how ‘it is supposed to be done’.

To sum up, many authors discussing operational or tactical issues are constrained by the military-political analysis imposed from above. Their proposals must conform to this analysis, or they risk damaging both their careers and the interests of their service. That said, a clear process of development is taking place, based on a synthesis of wartime experience and previously held ideas. A close reading of Russian military writings shows that there is room for discussion: new ideas are being promoted, while some old ones may be falling away.

Conclusion

Although it took some time, Russian military scholars eventually took up the challenge of discussing more openly the changes at the operational and tactical levels of warfare resulting from Russia’s war against Ukraine. Technical and tactical issues dominated the discussion, but new debates about operational art accelerated from 2024 onwards. Given the shock of the initial failure, political constraints and operational security concerns, this was not an especially long delay.

The Russian military is now clearly discussing some of the lessons from the war against Ukraine. Rather than merely adding wartime experience to pre-existing ideas about non-contact, high-tech, indirect and non-military warfare, scholars are increasingly concentrating on the actual character of the current war. However, some writers already appear to be looking beyond Ukraine towards the next war—against the United States and NATO—and would prefer to put the Ukrainian ‘debacle’ behind them.

The result might be a selective adaptation of the Armed Forces: operational and tactical methods are changing, while the strategic assumptions that led Russia into the war remain largely intact. Much of this proposed change remains technologically driven, with new systems frequently offered as substitutes for more difficult doctrinal, organisational and institutional changes. Such changes concern the fundamental development of the Armed Forces and are therefore inherently political, making a certain degree of institutional caution understandable. It remains to be seen if the Russian Armed Forces will pursue a true reform after the war against Ukraine ends. What is written in the Military Thought does not mean that it was officially adopted.

Nevertheless, a clear discrepancy remains between the strategic and operational levels. The operational and tactical methods are changing, while the strategic assumptions that led Russia into the war remain largely intact.

If the analyses of military-political and military-strategic factors presented in Military Thought between 2022 and 2026 are representative of genuine thinking within the Military Academy of the General Staff, other military institutions, and the Armed Forces leadership, they reveal a deeply biased view of the world. The reasons for this are probably numerous, but the consequences are more important. When Russian military institutions explain away their own actions, impose preset cognitive schemas on the actions of others, fail to recognise the complexity of reality, and combine analysis with the advocacy of parochial interests, they risk preparing themselves for the next military failure.

They are hardly the first armed forces in history to do so. The irony, however, lies in their self-proclaimed status as the foremost practitioners of military science while they continue to cling to the ghost of dialectical materialism and allow political directives to define the boundaries of their analysis.

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