Who’s in charge of Russia’s war?
Western officials have spent weeks waiting for a Russian war commander to emerge. No one has.
The conclusion among NATO officials and the intelligence community is that battlefield decisions are being made far from the fight, all the way back in Moscow, by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu; Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff; and even Putin.
This extreme top-down approach means that Moscow transmits instructions to generals in the field, who then transmit them to troops, who are told to follow those instructions no matter the situation on the ground.
The lack of a military leader on the ground in Ukraine has meant that Russian air, ground and sea units are not in sync, and top military brass are being forced dangerously close to the front lines. At least seven Russian generals have been killed and 7,000 to 15,000 troops have died, according to U.S. officials.
“It shows up in the mistakes that are being made,” said retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who served as NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe during the Kosovo War.
The BBC reported on the mounting casualties in one of Russia’s elite units, the 331st Guards Parachute Regiment. Considered “the best of the best,” the unit based in Kostroma, north of Moscow, was part of a failed attempt by Russian forces to capture an airport near Kyiv in the early days of the war.
Social media posts by the families and friends of the soldiers show their despair. “Nobody knows anything,” said one such posting on VKontakte. “The 331st regiment is disappearing. Almost every day photos of our Kostroma boys get published. It sends shivers down my spine. What’s happening? When will this end? When will people stop dying?” (NYT)