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Russia’s New �eory of Victory

How Moscow Is Trying to Learn From Its Mistakes
BY MICK RYAN December 14, 2022
MICK RYAN is a military strategist and a retired Australian Army major general.

Christmas Day will be a grim milestone for the Ukrainian people. It will
mark almost exactly ten months since Russian forces crossed into their
country, bringing devastation on a scale not seen in Europe since World
War II. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed. Millions have
�ed their homes. Most of the state has lost power, leading Kyiv to worry
that—as winter sets in—many of its citizens will freeze.

But Christmas will also be a grim marker for Russia. Moscow planned for
a short, victorious campaign. Ukraine has instead dealt it a bitter lesson
on modern war�ghting and national resilience. �e Ukrainians have
steadily degraded Russia’s military capacity by damaging its forces on the
battle�eld and in support areas. �ey have undermined Russia’s reputation
both around the globe and in the minds of Russia’s own soldiers,
commanders, and citizens. �e Ukrainians eschew methodical battles
with high attrition where possible, but they engage in close combat when
they have opportunities to gain ground. It has all been to great e�ect.

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Ukraine pushed Russia away from Kyiv, took back the northeast province
of Kharkiv, and liberated parts of the Donbas. Most recently, it freed
Kherson, the only provincial capital that Russia has succeeded in
capturing.

It is too soon, however, to count Russia out. Russian President Vladimir

Putin has appointed a new military commander, General Sergei
Surovikin, to lead the invasion, and Surovikin appears more brutal and
capable than his predecessors. In one of his �rst acts, he launched the
vigorous and horri�c aerial campaign that has destroyed much of
Ukraine’s energy infrastructure—a civilian-centered tactic he honed while
leading Russian forces in Syria. Surovikin was responsible for Russia’s
retreat from Kherson, but unlike when Russia withdrew from near Kyiv or
Kharkiv, Surovikin saw to it that this retreat was well organized and well
conducted.

Surovikin’s arrival heralds another adaptation of Russian strategy in

Ukraine. Although Putin might realize he will not be able to take Kyiv,
Russia’s president may still believe he can seize all of the four provinces he
recently (and illegally) annexed—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and
Zaporizhzhia. Surovikin is a critical implementer of these plans. Putin
hopes that, as the war drags on and winter comes, Europe will stop
providing Ukraine with large amounts of assistance so that the continent
can try to restore imports of Russian gas. He believes that this potential
diminishment of support will pave the way for a new, successful Russian
o�ensive. To carry out such an o�ensive, he is counting on Surovikin to
reorganize the military so that it operates in a smoother, more consistent,
and more e�ective fashion.

It will be di�cult for Surovikin to succeed, given the Russian military’s

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many problems, such as its deteriorating equipment and low morale. But
Surovikin is working to unify the military under his command. He is
almost certainly drawing up battle plans that are clearly focused, unlike
past assaults that spread Russia’s troops thin. If Kyiv wants to keep the
upper hand, it will need to anticipate Surovikin’s strategy while
maintaining Western support—and that means continuing to innovate on
the battle�eld.

DOWN, NOT OUT

For people who have followed the war, much of what Russia has in store
for 2023 will sound familiar. Moscow, for example, will continue to use
propaganda about NATO aggression to try to keep China, India, and
other currently neutral states from participating in Western sanctions. It
will also use misinformation and disinformation to ensure that Russia’s
own population continues to support the con�ict. Keeping Russians in
line will prove especially important when Moscow inevitably conducts
additional military drafts. Even dictators must pay attention to domestic
politics.

Similarly, Putin will sustain his energy warfare. He will keep depriving
Europe of gas in hopes that the continent will force Kyiv to agree to a
cease-�re as temperatures drop. He will also encourage more attacks on
Ukraine’s energy supplies. In Putin’s calculus, Russian strikes on
Ukrainian power stations will not only freeze the country’s people but also
cost Ukraine external assistance; foreign investors, after all, are unlikely to
return to the country when there is unreliable power. Even if the attacks
do not keep out investors, they will still prove economically costly for Kyiv
by stopping the Ukrainian power exports that began in July 2022.

Yet other elements of Russia’s strategy will be new—and Surovikin is

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playing a critical role in the changes. �e general appears to be the �rst

military leader that Putin clearly supports, and—according to a recent
speech by U.S. National Intelligence Director Avril Haines—the Russian
president is now better informed about the armed forces’ day-to-day
operations. If Putin is con�dent that he is being better informed than he
was before October, he is more likely to turn his attention to the many
other challenges that Russia currently faces, giving Surovikin greater
autonomy in using Russia’s broad array of forces within Ukraine.
Surovikin could use this relative freedom of action to bring Russia’s
fractured military and mercenary groups under a more uni�ed control. He
is certain to use it to better integrate Russia’s air and land operations and
to ensure that there’s a better alignment between his country’s battle�eld
activities and information operations.

Consolidation will not, by itself, make Russia’s troops truly combat ready.
Surovikin commands an army that su�ers from low morale and keeps
losing its people and best equipment. So far, evidence suggests that the
troops Russia has mobilized to replace the dead and injured are not
receiving the kind of demanding training they need to succeed. During
the winter, at least, Surovikin will be on the defensive, doing whatever he
can to preserve his force in the face of ongoing Ukrainian attacks.

But he will begin to prepare Russia’s troops for new operations. Surovikin
will, for example, work to reconstitute battered units by deploying tens of
thousands of newly mobilized troops to Ukraine. If (and, almost certainly,
when) these troops prove to be of poor quality, he may work to improve
training back in Russia. He will try to take advantage of Russia’s ongoing
industrial mobilization to acquire more and better weapons. He will also
set up systems to safeguard key supply routes, build a more resilient

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logistics network, and stockpile munitions and supplies for future

o�ensive operations.

Surovikin is likely to be more meticulous in planning and executing

attacks. He will seek to ensure that Russia’s forces are aligned on the
battle�eld and to improve his country’s tactics, with the goal of avoiding
the often piecemeal and uncoordinated approaches of his predecessors.
And the general will keep working to make it harder for Ukraine to
advance. Surovikin, for instance, will sustain his campaign against
Ukrainian infrastructure, a tactic that diverts both Ukrainian and Western
resources away from Kyiv’s o�ensive operations. (�e strikes also provide
propaganda for Russia’s domestic audience, ghoulish as that may seem.)
Such strikes have little downside for Russia; they are an asymmetric
advantage. As the historian Lawrence Freedman recently noted, Ukraine
does not have the capacity to similarly destroy infrastructure within
Russia—Ukrainian strikes on Russian air bases notwithstanding. “�e
Ukrainians are winning on the battle�eld,” he wrote, “but they cannot hit
back against the Russians on that strategic level.”

Surovikin will likely look to carry out more “economy of force” missions:
military activities in which one party attempts to deceive its enemy in
ways that force it to expend large numbers of soldiers on unproductive
tasks. Russia, for example, has placed small contingents of soldiers in
Belarus in order to force Ukraine to keep larger contingents around Kyiv,
depriving the Ukrainian military of troops it could use elsewhere.
Surovikin will likely conduct more such activities to give his military a
better chance of success as he plans his next steps. Unless Russia is
thoroughly routed, Surovikin will want to begin o�ensive ground
operations that, if completed, would give Russia all or most of the

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provinces Putin has annexed.

�e general, of course, knows that Ukraine could again try to retake lost
territory. As a result, he is already ordering the military to construct more
defensive positions across the territory Russia controls. Surovikin is also
likely to conduct political activities to “Russify” the parts of Ukraine that
Russia occupies. �is process will resemble what Russia did in Kherson:
moving the local economy o� the Ukrainian hryvnia and onto the ruble,
changing the school curriculum, and the repulsive practice of stealing
Ukrainian children and sending them to Russia for adoption. Whether
these will be more e�ective going forward than it was in Kherson remains
to be seen.

MOVES AND COUNTERMOVES

Right now, the Ukrainian military still has the advantage. Unlike at the
start of the war, Ukrainian leaders are the ones who decide where and
when battles are fought. �ey get to determine how battle�eld campaigns
are executed. �ey have the momentum, and they do not want to
relinquish it. But that does not mean Ukraine will have the initiative
inde�nitely. To stay on top, the Ukrainians need to understand and then
undermine Putin and Surovikin’s plans.

First, that means Kyiv must continue to counter Russia’s information

warfare. Moscow is working to convince Europeans that their rising
heating bills are caused by their countries’ support for Ukraine, hoping
that it can persuade these states that the cost is not worth it. It is also
trying to undermine Washington’s support by fueling the United States’
partisan divisions. If the Kremlin succeeds in pushing NATO states away
from backing Kyiv, it could prove devastating: for Ukraine, military and
economic support from the United States and Europe has been essential

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to battle�eld success.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his clever team are working
on messages aimed at maintaining the international community’s
sympathy. But they also need to keep the war on the front page of
Western newspapers and at the forefront of the West’s thinking. And the
best way to accomplish that is to do what Ukraine has been doing for the
past six months: winning. �e more victories that Kyiv can point to, the
more funding and weapons it is likely to receive from the West (rather
than calls to negotiate).

But to keep succeeding, Ukraine’s military strategy will need to evolve. It

will have to anticipate and defeat Surovikin’s battle�eld actions. To do so,
the country is likely to intensify its surveillance of Russia’s front lines,
logistics hubs, and command hubs, which can help identify weaknesses it
can exploit. Ukraine must also broaden its program of sending soldiers
and junior military leaders to Europe for more intensive training, making
its already superior troops even better than Russia’s mobilized ones. And
Ukraine will need to continue to �nding ways to degrade Russian
capacities that help enable the invasion, including Russian logistics,
transport, and command hubs. Ukraine recently attacked two Russian air
bases over 400 miles from Ukraine—strikes that it will likely want to
replicate. Such deep attacks a�ect the Russians psychologically, impact
Putin’s domestic political standing, and force Russia into a strategic
dilemma about how to weigh its military e�ort in Ukraine against
defending home bases.

In executing these steps, Ukrainian leaders and planners can help prevent
a more energetic, integrated, and imaginative Russian military from
emerging. And if Ukraine can continue to win on the battle�eld, Kyiv

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might try to isolate and possibly even seize all of the Donbas and Crimea.
Retaking both areas is a stated goal of the Ukrainian government. But
successfully moving into these territories will prove highly challenging.
Taking Crimea would be particularly tricky, requiring that Ukraine carry
out new kinds of naval operations to stop Russia’s powerful Black Sea
Fleet from hitting Ukrainian troops as they cross into the peninsula. �e
Ukrainians would have to simultaneously coordinate amphibious,
airborne, ground, and other operations. �is task, although not
insurmountable, is di�cult. And some Western governments might view
a campaign for Crimea as beyond the purview of what they promised to
support—even though the peninsula legally remains part of Ukraine and
Zelensky has continually telegraphed his intention to take it back.

But there is a long way to go before Ukraine reaches the point where it
can invade Crimea. Right now, it has more immediate crises and
challenges. �e country, for instance, needs to �nd ways to quickly
reconstruct and harden its power and heating network in the face of
ongoing Russian attacks, including by getting more Western assistance.
(�e U.S. State Department’s promise to send more than $53 million in
energy equipment will help.) Kyiv will also need to carefully consider how
it should sequence and prioritize its 2023 ground, air, and information
operations, similar to the way it orchestrated its countero�ensives over the
last several months to force Russia into simultaneously �ghting in the
north, the east, and the south.

�ankfully, there are plenty of reasons to think that Kyiv can defeat even a
revitalized Russian military. Ukraine’s international in�uence campaigns
have been a model for other democracies to study and emulate. �e
Ukrainians have proven superior to the Russians at adapting and updating

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their tactics and military institutions. And they have far better morale.
War holds no certainties, regardless of previous victories. But if Ukraine
can maintain Western support, it can prove that Putin’s new theory of
Copyright © 2022 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
victory is just as misguided as was his last.
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