The Russian military invaded Ukraine on false or otherwise flawed assumptions about the Ukrainian military, and Western views of the Russian military were often equally as wrong. Senior U.S. military officers and government officials believed the Russian military would quickly destroy Ukrainian resistance, with some officials speculating that Kyiv would fall within seventy-two hours. Instead, the attack on Kyiv stalled, with the infamous forty-mile convoy becoming the climax of Russian logistical and planning failures that led to the embarrassing withdrawal from Kyiv in late March. Perhaps the West fell prey to the Russian information campaigns that have been demonstrated during military campaigns over the years, such as Russian involvement in the Syrian Civil War or the “Little Green Men” in Crimea. Military analysts ultimately believed that the Russian military had reformed after Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov’s 2008 “New Look” reforms.

The invasion of Ukraine has shown some of the operational design flaws that were endemic and characteristic of the post-Soviet Russian military, which Serdyukov’s reforms were meant to address. Poor force design and employment, flawed intelligence and reconnaissance, uncoordinated command and control, and systemic logistical problems still run across all levels of Russian command. The overabundance of Russian missteps in local conflicts since the fall of the Soviet Union should have helped analysts see the Russian military’s shortcomings. Even though they are not exhaustive, a brief look at these shortcomings may have helped shape a different Western perception of the Russian military before the invasion.

Ukraine 2022

Once hostilities broke out in Ukraine this February, the Russian military was plagued by poor intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities, just as it was in past conflicts, highlighting a recurring problem. For example, according to open-source reporting during the now well-known counteroffensive in Kharkiv, the Russian military often lost track of Ukrainian brigade elements, leading to the successful Ukrainian rout of Russian forces in the region. Specifically, by the summer of 2022, the manning situation had become so dire in some parts of the sector that the 45th Guards GRU Spetsnaz Brigade, which was the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) and the GRU’s premier deep reconnaissance unit, had one battalion manning defenses southwest of Izyum and a second battalion manning defenses in northernmost part of northeast Kherson Province. This left the entire Russian force in the region effectively blind. Russia has also lost 148 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles during the war.

At the start of the special military operation (SMO), Russian motorized rifle battalions appeared to operate at between 65 to 75 percent. Shortages in manpower only became more dramatic, leading to the call for partial mobilization in September. Throughout the summer, manning issues worsened because Russian leader Vladimir Putin would not approve mobilization and because the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense’s ad hoc, ninety-day reservist-based solutions kept expiring. By August, members of the 152nd Guards Missile Brigade, an Iskander Brigade from Kaliningrad, were performing infantry functions in a quasi-attempt to hold part of the 11th Army Corps’ defensive line northwest of Izyum. Perhaps most surprisingly, the training of Russian forces appeared to be underdeveloped, even among more elite forces like the naval infantry, VDV, and Spetsnaz.

Russia’s command and control continues to be equally dreadful. Reports suggest that the Russian military did not have a theater commander in Ukraine until late April, when now-relieved Gen. Aleksandr Dvornikov was appointed to lead Russian forces in theater. Up to that point, each Combined Arms Army operated independently through its axes of advance, with little overall coordination. Coordination amongst military units seemed haphazard, with Rosgvardiya—National Guard forces—sometimes in the lead of Russian formations. Russian commanders appeared to have vast communication issues, which may have led to some of these Russian commanders being targeted and killed by Ukrainian troops. In a now-famous video, 90th Guards Tank Division members operated unsecured on their secured system, and their communications were intercepted in an ambush in eastern Kyiv and broadcast worldwide.

Moreover, secure communications have not worked because ERA, the Russian cryptophone introduced in 2021, relies on ground-based 3G and 4G infrastructure. Additionally, the GRU’s Strelets reconnaissance, command-and-control, and communications system, which also uses 3G and 4G technology, was disrupted early in the invasion. Russia has lost 201 command posts and communication stations since the onset of hostilities, making command and control difficult across the battlefield.

Chechnya I

In 1994, the Russian military, a force inherited from the Soviet Union, was in chaos. Officers had not received pay for months, and the Russian economy struggled to convert from a state-planned economy to a capitalistic market economy. During the organizational upheavals that quickly followed, Russia plunged its military into a battle with a determined and flexible enemy, some of whom had served in the Soviet Armed Forces and had Soviet equipment at their disposal. The same Russian egotism that led to predictions in February of Kyiv falling within days was also abundant in Grozny, with then-Russian minister of defense Gen. Pavel Grachev bragging that Grozny would fall in two hours.

After a series of failed and forceful attempts to dispose of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Chechnya’s president and a former Soviet Air Force general, Russia deployed a contingency force to Grozny, which proved disastrous. Kremlin security officials believed Dudayev and his army to be a disorganized criminal element that would be subdued on the sight of the first Russian tank, failing to grasp true Chechen aims and capabilities. Russian tactics were organized more on a display of force than a movement to contact. Intimidation and coercion were the main objectives. Detailed planning for the military intervention in Chechnya did not begin until two weeks before the operation, which had consequential effects throughout the entire twenty-one-month operation.

A Soviet and Russian adage for force generation—“Personnel: check! Equipment: check!, Training: optional”—lives strongly inside Russian planners’ minds. At the time of the attack on Grozny, Russian forces had not conducted divisional or regimental field training since before the collapse of the Soviet military. Most Russian battalions were manned at 55 percent, and not a single Russian regiment was manned at full strength. Russian units were casually constructed, and a considerable quantity of Russian soldiers were conscripts; none had trained together before going into the streets of Grozny. In the 81st Brigade, 90th Guards Tank Division, forty-nine out of the fifty-six platoon commanders had been at the military academy weeks before the beginning of hostilities. 50 percent of the men who hastily assembled for operations in Grozny had never fired a shell from their tank. Russian commanders suffered communication breakdowns at the platoon, company, and battalion levels. They were often forced to transmit over clear radio, allowing Chechen fighters to monitor their transmissions and insert false messages to confuse Russian forces.

As the Russian military began operations into Grozny, Russian commanders committed their armor forces without infantry support. Instead of pinpointing primary efforts and objectives, Russian troops advanced in three separate, isolated, and mutually unsupported columns. In an identical fashion to the war in Ukraine, where hundreds of videos show Russian tank formations operating alone in cities or villages, the Russians suffered catastrophic losses as tanks and personnel carriers entered the city and became apparent targets for Chechnya hunter-killer teams. As the battle of Grozny waned, 102 out of the 120 Russian infantry fighting vehicles and twenty of the twenty-six tanks that had entered the city were wiped out. The 1st battalion of the 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade entered the city with 1,000 soldiers; by January 3, as it entered the city center, the unit had lost 800. Russia also failed to block off the city, as Soviet (and later Russian) doctrine, learned after World War II, prescribed.

The Chechnyan and Ukrainian invasions in 2022 share some resemblances. Both saw inadequately staffed units, poor use of combined arms leading to catastrophic effects on the armored force, and inadequate intelligence collection—amplified by endemic corruption—resulting in a misconception of the enemy. Just like in Chechnya, Russian security forces painted an erroneous picture of realities, leading military planners to underestimate Ukrainian troops. Much like in Grozny, Russian armor entered cities without infantry support. Weakly executed reconnaissance meant that Russian commanders headed blindly into Grozny. Russian forces did not know Chechnyan strongholds in the city and, therefore, blindly committed frontal troops instead of bypassing them. This underscores further command and control problems that date back to 1995.

Georgia

By 2006, the Russian military was training for a confrontation with Georgia with large-scale military exercises in the North Caucasus Military District that looked like a dress rehearsal for an attack on Georgia. After a Georgian military attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Russia attacked Georgia on August 8, 2008. The geography and military disparity between Russia and Georgia during the conflict resulted in unsurprising outcomes. However, a closer look shows evidence of Russian shortcomings similar to those in Chechnya and Ukraine.

According to Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the Russian General Staff, only 17 percent of the ground forces units were combat-ready. Only 5 of the 150 regiments in the Russian air force were combat-ready, and half of the Russian fleet could not leave port. Russian contract soldiers did not perform well during the operation, with most of the fighting being conducted by special-purpose forces, such as Russian airborne or Spetsnaz troops. The Russian air force’s failure to suppress Georgia’s limited air defense capabilities and its difficulties identifying friend or foe raise questions about its effectiveness.

During the five-day war, command and control proved to be a critical shortcoming for Russian forces. Makarov had been appointed to his post weeks before the invasion, and the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff, a key position in direct control of the Georgian operation, did not have a commanding officer during the war. District-level commanders did not have complete control of the air force. Instead, the air force was directed by Gen. Alexander Zelin, the air force’s commander, using a cell phone from his office in Moscow. Communication systems were obsolete, with many being from Soviet-era stocks. During one of the battles on August 8, it was reported that General Anatoly Khrulyov, the 58th Combined Arms Army’s commander, had to use a journalist’s cell phone to communicate with his forces because communication with his units was unavailable. Russia was so surprised by the timing of the attack on South Ossetia that the Russian General Staff was in the process of moving to a new location on August 8.

Intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance were equally dreadful for Russian forces in the Georgian campaign. Russia was both blind and deaf during the conflict. For example, on the afternoon of August 9, a Russian convoy of thirty infantry fighting vehicles encountered elements of the Georgian 3rd Infantry Brigades reconnaissance company. According to the book The Tanks of August, both the Russians and the Georgians were taken by surprise, and the ensuing firefight killed three Russians and eight Georgian soldiers, destroyed twenty-five out of thirty vehicles, and seriously wounded Khrulyov, along with several Russian journalists.

Conclusion

Poor command and control, reconnaissance and intelligence, logistics, force employment, and training have led to a weak showing for the Russian military in Ukraine. Military analysts failed to see the Russian military for what it is: a military that still lacks basic military training, suffers from crippling manpower shortages and inadequate Soviet-era equipment, and, at times, is poorly led. Assumptions of Russian military dominance were mainly based on Russian capabilities vis-à-vis Ukraine and the belief that most of Russia’s military reforms since 2008 had fixed institutional problems that manifested in Chechnya and Georgia. This turned out to be false, and Russia is suffering from the same mistakes today as it did in 1995. We should not have been surprised by Russian performance in this conflict, and it seems that Russia cannot escape its history.

Some 315 million years ago during the late Age of Amphibians, early reptiles began to roam our lands. As the scientist Carl Sagan explores in his book, The Dragons of Eden, these primeval lizards were simple meager creatures. But their arrival was “a symbolic turning point” in natural history, for much of life since then has been about the widening dominance of brains.

You see, from the humble origins of single-celled organisms to the vast structures of modern mammals, evolution has been a haphazard process in increasing complexity. Many of the most complex life forms today contain far more information in their genes and brains than their ancestors of a previous epoch.

Humans in particular signed a “bargain with nature” several million years ago, Sagan writes—for nature endowed our children with a “long childhood”, chocked full with play, questions, and mischief. While these adorable creatures can be a handful sometimes, their unmatched potential for learning is why we have survived for so long as a species. It is also why we have art and literature, math and science, and other wonderfully human experiences. Youthful plasticity is a powerful gift. But one that may prove to be a curse someday if we are uncareful.

Of course, “biology is more like history than it is like physics”, writes Sagan. It is a deep chronicle of accidents and errors and flukes that powders through the ceaseless sift of natural selection. Indeed, many vestiges are recorded inside us to this day. For one, this is why we find gill slits in the necks of developing human fetuses. They are physical traces of our genetic lineage to some ancient fish.

Similar relics may manifest in our psychology as well. Even to this day, snake bites and our falling from great heights are common themes for nightmares. We should remember, Sagan notes, that the deep structures of our minds were sculpted by the selection pressures that our ancestors endured when they lived up high for millions-of-years in the trees and forests of yore. He and others wonder to what extent our dreams remain tethered to our “arboreal origins”.

We know, likewise, as Sagan explains, that much of our intuitive knowledge and autonomic behavior, like our senses and reflexes, are products of “an extremely long evolutionary history.” Verbally conscious rational thinking, on the other hand, is a recent innovation, at least by the standards of geologic time.

What’s fascinating, I think, is how these programs and systems are simultaneously localized yet integrated in the brain. Sagan shows, for example, that our brains store memories in many sites. They are “encoded by ‘teams’ of neurons all firing in synchrony, providing redundancy that enables these memories to persist over time.” Some travel back and forth through the corpus callosum—a thick bundle of nerve fibers that forms a “neural bridge” between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain.

Of course, functional problems arise when one or more regions of the brain is damaged. “Accidents or strokes to the temporal or parietal lobes of the left hemisphere of the neocortex”, Sagan writes, “result in impairment of the ability to read, write, speak and do arithmetic.” Conversely, “lesions in the right hemisphere lead to impairment of three-dimensional vision, pattern recognition, musical ability and holistic reasoning.” Meanwhile, “injuries to the right parietal lobe… sometimes result in the inability of a patient to recognize his [or her] own face in a mirror or photograph.”

But when it is firing as it should, the mammalian brain must be among the most spectacular constructions in all of biology. Somehow, many of these feeble neurons—which we might think of as individual units for computation—come together in groups of roughly a hundred to make cortical minicolumns in the human brain.

In turn, some fifty to a hundred minicolumns make for a macrocolumn, while many more macrocolumns make for the cortical areas that characterize the broad regions of the human cerebral cortex. All of which, amongst other things, help to bring our perception, language, thought, and consciousness into being.

What’s equally fantastic is how all these disparate programs and organizations consort together. The brain is certainly more than the sum of its parts. No human system, from language and culture, to art and music, to science and math, is purely intuitive or rational. Its product is a melding of worlds in the brain. A merger of deep synaptic programs. In Sagan’s view, we might go as far as to say that “human culture is the function of the corpus callosum” through its bridging of our hemispheres.

Science is exactly like this as well, Sagan argues. It is a daring and creative act that is backed by logical reasoning and verification. For instance, it took great inspiration and imagination on the part of Albert Einstein to conceive of the warping of spacetime in his formulation of general relativity. But it took a good amount of left-brained experiments—from the perihelion precession of Mercury’s orbit to gravitational redshift of light—to verify what might otherwise have been a creative but outlandish description of our physical universe.

Of course, life is often a matter of degree. Sagan himself wonders to what extent the mind might manifest in other mammals. Do elephants see beauty in their landscapes? Do whales enjoy the songs of other whales? Can horses feel horse-like patriotism? Might dogs experience their own version of religious fervor?

While we might not yet know the answer to such questions, it is clear that animals are capable of learning some complex behaviors. Sagan points, for example, to the famous work of Beatrice and Robert Gardner, who taught American sign language to the chimpanzees named Washoe and Lana. The Gardners learned that while the vocal architecture of chimpanzees are ill suited for human speech, it did not mean that they were incapable of communicating with us.

In fact, after learning a good number of basic signs, the chimpanzees began to combine and recombine gestures in nontrivial ways. Washoe combined signs, for instance, to say “waterbird” when she eyed upon a duck in the pond for the first time in her life. Likewise, Lana combined the sign for the color “orange” with the sign for “apple” when she spotted a bright spherical fruit that she had never before seen.

For another example, Sagan turns to a troop of Old World monkeys called macaques on the beaches of a southern Japanese island. In this experiment, mischievous researchers littered the sandy shores with grains of wheat. You must realize that it is a real chore for any human or monkey to separate grain from sand for food. Still, as a persistent lot, the macaques partook in this laborious enterprise. Hour upon hour, they picked and cleaned with every meal and every day.

But after some time, an entrepreneurial macaque named Imo, whether by mistake or anger or genius, tossed a handful of grain and sand into the salty water. Upon her realization that wheat floats and sand sinks, Imo began to eat better than the rest. And while the older monkeys clung to their ways, the youngsters recognized the benefits of her innovation. After a generation or two, all macaques on this part of the island, Sagan notes, became water-sifters. An arresting instance of monkey see, monkey do.

We are also well aware of the complex rituals and traditions that characterize some primate societies. Sagan dedicates a good number of paragraphs in his book, for example, to describe the practices of gothic squirrel monkeys in the canopies of the tropical rainforests of South America. The male monkeys, in particular, are a rather daring and carnal bunch. Whether it is to court a female, or to assert one’s dominance, the male’s grand plan is always the same. He will spread his thighs and thrust his erect phallus into the air, all the while screaming and screeching with unrelenting abandon. And sometimes, the ritual works. Sagan is right to say of course that most humans today will find such behavior at the dining table impolite. But it is not at all strange for a squirrel monkey living in a deeply hierarchical society.

Perhaps we are fortunate then that the quantity and quality of the neural connections inside our brains allow us to select for gentler modes for self-expression. Today, we profess in stories, write in letters, and affect with smiles, hugs and kisses. “In a way, the map of the motor cortex”, Sagan writes—the region in our frontal lobe that helps with controlling and executing goal-directed movements—“is an accurate portrait of our humanity.”

Further still, our frontal lobes have evolved to undertake higher executive functions like planmaking, logical thinking, and problem solving. But “the price we pay for anticipation of the future”, Sagan notes, “is anxiety about it.” We live incessantly and hurriedly, forever in a state of worry about our livelihoods and standing among others. Indeed, it is in response to our anxieties and anticipations that we devise an ever growing myriad of doctrines, from magics to scriptures to legalese. All of this in attempts to understand, regulate and organize ourselves within a harsh, uncertain and unrelenting world.

Still, we must wonder how much of ourselves remains akin to that of squirrel monkeys, for humans are rarely as poetic or logical or rational as we presume ourselves to be. Many go about their affairs without pause under a rulership of thoughtless motivations and emotions.

From hunger and arousal to our fight-and-flight responses, we know that the brain’s limbic system is involved in our emotional functions and survival instincts. The little almond-shaped amygdala that resides inside is especially central to our feelings of pleasure, anxiety, anger, and fear.

Studies find, Sagan notes, that “electrical discharges in the limbic system sometimes result in symptoms similar to those of psychoses… [or] psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs.” Meanwhile, “electrical stimulation of the amygdala in placid domestic animals can rouse them to almost unbelievable states of fear or frenzy.”

I cannot help but feel uneasy knowing that the line that separates us from the wild, the manic, and the mindless is wafer-thin. But Sagan goes further. He wonders how much of human society itself is limbic or reptilian even. You must agree, after all, that much of human culture, bureaucracy, and politics is hierarchical, territorial, ritualistic, and aggressive.

Despite the scientific and cultural boons that arose with the Ages of Reason and Information, people everywhere continue to find false comfort and hope in limbic doctrines that are “mystical and occult… [and] impervious to rational discussion [and disproof]”, the scientist laments.

Sagan observes a metaphor for our predicament in The Phaedrus by Plato. In the dialogue, his protagonist “Socrates likens the human soul to a chariot drawn by two horses—one black, one white—pulling in different directions and weakly controlled by a charioteer.” Sagan suggests that the human brain and society is just like that. Disparate yet integrated, always in tension and connection.

Indeed, we are familiar, for instance, with how the logical and rational parts of the self can sometimes override its cruder instincts and motivations. Yet the reverse is just as true and common. And in a similar way, our cultures, institutions, and societies too can express and repress the best and worst parts of us. For this reason, Sagan wonders if Hollywood’s obsession with sex and violence is simply a manifestation and reflection of our still primitive roots.

Of course, all of this is an oversimplification. Nothing in life is ever easy to describe. Still, the Phaedrus chariot, I think, is a useful symbol of our character. While the embellishment is sometimes apt, Sagan “[does] not mean [to say] that [our] neocortex is not functioning at all.” Rather, it is “our plasticity, our long childhood, that prevents a slavish adherence to genetically preprogrammed behavior in human beings more than in any other species.” The only hope for humanity then is in learning and education. But behind the backdrop of our cosmic calendar, the human self and society is certainly still in embryo.

As Sagan writes:
“The world is very old, and human beings are very young… [If we] imagine the fifteen-billion-year lifetime of the universe… compressed into the span of a single year… It is disconcerting to find that in such a cosmic year the Earth does not condense out of interstellar matter until early September; dinosaurs emerge on Christmas Eve; flowers arise on December 28th; and men and women originate at 10:30 P.M. on New Year’s Eve. All of recorded history occupies the last ten seconds of December 31; and the time from the waning of the Middle Ages to the present occupies little more than one second… It is only in the last day of the Cosmic Calendar that substantial intellectual abilities have evolved on the planet Earth. The coordinated functioning of both cerebral hemispheres is the tool Nature has provided for our survival. [But] we are unlikely to survive if we do not make full and creative use of our human intelligence.” .

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Robson Street is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from Burrard Street to Jervis were also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia’s entry into the Canadian Confederation, and Premier of the province from 1889 to 1892. Robson Street starts at BC Place Stadium near the north shore of False Creek, then runs northwest past Vancouver Library Square, Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery, coming to an end at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.

As of 2006, the city of Vancouver overall had the fifth most expensive retail rental rates in the world, averaging US$135 per square foot per year, citywide. Robson Street tops Vancouver with its most expensive locations renting for up to US$200 per square foot per year. In 2006, both Robson Street and the Mink Mile on Bloor Street in Toronto were the 22nd most expensive streets in the world, with rents of $208 per square feet. In 2007, the Mink Mile and Robson slipped to 25th in the world with an average of $198 per square feet. The price of each continues to grow with Vancouver being Burberry’s first Canadian location and Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood (which is bounded on the south side by Bloor) now commanding rents of $300 per square foot.

In 1895, train tracks were laid down the street, supporting a concentration of shops and restaurants. From the early to middle-late 20th century, and especially after significant immigration from postwar Germany, the northwest end of Robson Street was known as a centre of German culture and commerce in Vancouver, earning the nickname Robsonstrasse, even among non-Germans (this name lives on in the Robsonstrasse Hotel on the street). At one time, the city had placed streetsigns reading “Robsonstrasse” though these were placed after the German presence in the area had largely vanished.

Robson Street was featured on an old edition of the Canadian Monopoly board as one of the two most expensive properties.