Friendly fire blunders, confusion, low morale: why Russia’s army has stalled

"The challenge that Russia has struggled to address is that while its force has become increasingly fragmented into units where experience is largely confined to company-sized or at most battalion-sized actions, Russia’s political aspirations have far exceeded the capacity of these formations. Battalion tactical groups operating under independent brigades, for example, proved logistically inadequate in 2015, leading to the reintroduction of divisions to manage supply

Preparing for the war in Ukraine, Russia has drawn troops from across its military districts, fielding 190,000 personnel from units that have rarely worked together and that use a wide range of equipment of varying vintage.

Further complexity emerges from the mobilisation of raw recruits from the occupied Luhansk and Donetsk enclaves, the deployment of interior riot police and Rosgvardia (national guard) troops, meant for crowd control rather than warfighting, and Wagner mercenaries."

! More In the analysis by Jack Watling

Friendly fire blunders, confusion, low morale: why Russia’s army has stalled | Russia | The Guardian