Has Russia's Army Changed Little Since 1945?

I wrongly believed Russia's rulers were afraid of casualties. What else hasn't changed?

Is the best way to deal with Russian aggression to strike back with whatever can be immediately scraped together? Is it self-defeating to believe that Russia will use the time granted to prepare a defense less effectively than you can use the time to prepare an attack? What does World War II tell us about that?

I had believed Putin wouldn’t achieve much by invading Ukraine because his military wasn’t very good and because I didn’t think the Russian army could be defined by its ability to simply endure casualties. Russia is smaller and shrinking. And stolid peasants were no longer the foundation of Russian army power.

Putin may have believed that, meaning he was willing to believe the fantasy that Ukrainians would welcome Putin’s multiple military parades into Ukrainian cities.

But it turned out that Russians would die in large numbers. At least outside of the Moscow-St. Petersburg core of European Russia. And boy has Putin relied on that.

ISW assesses Russia’s performance trying to conquer Ukraine so far this year:

Russian gains along the frontline have slowed over the last four months, but Russia continues to tolerate personnel losses comparable to the casualty rate Russian forces sustained during a period of intensified advances between September and December 2024. …

Russian forces are currently sustaining a higher casualty rate per square kilometer gained than in Fall 2024. …

Russia has thus far sustained these casualties and the current tempo of offensive operations by rapidly deploying low quality troops to frontline units, although the reliance on such troops is also hindering Russia's ability to conduct complex operations and make rapid advances in Ukraine.

We could also see that after Russia’s army was shattered in its invasion during 2022, allowing even the shaky Ukrainians to compel the Russians to withdraw from the Kiev region early in the invasion; and then counter-attack significantly on the Kharkiv front and the Kherson front later in 2022.

Russia’s depleted ground forces looked ripe for a major counteroffensive. Yet Ukraine could not gather the forces needed to do that. Yes, there were problems with the plan and the way the counteroffensive was built using new, green soldiers with the new Western equipment. But I believe the major problem was that Ukraine granted the Russians too much time:

Russia's ground forces were teetering in the autumn of 2022 in that first year of invasion after heavy casualties, faltering logistics, and the shock of being in a war rather than a victory parade. But even then I worried that failure to exploit that weakness would allow Russia time to repair its military. And here we are.

I had wondered why Ukraine was not hitting back during the autumn of 2022 through spring 2023. Was it literally impossible to strike or did Ukraine think it could use the time better than Russia could?

Since I was in high school, a book by a former German tank general about his experience fighting the Russians impressed me. The book, Panzer Battles, by F.W. Von Mellenthin, was about more than the Russian front. But the Russian front in World War II was the relevant part for me. This part in particular:

If a bridgehead is forming, or an advanced position is being established by the Russians, attack, attack at once, attack strongly. Hesitation will always be fatal. A delay of an hour may mean frustration, a delay of a few hours does mean frustration, a day of delay may mean a major catastrophe. Even if there is no more than one infantry platoon and one single tank, attack! Attack when the Russians are still above ground, when they can still be seen and tackled, when they have had no time as yet to organize their defenses, when there are no heavy weapons available. A few hours later will be too late. Delay means disaster: resolute energetic and immediate action means success.

This kind of initiative exploits a Russian habit that still plagues the Russian army:

Russian soldiers still wait for orders before acting. No orders mean nothing happens on the Russian side. This is one reason the Russians are running out of infantry. Russia can barely cover the thousand kilometers front line, and the current number of Russian ground attacks is miniscule.

This is Russia’s own fault. They persisted in making frontal assaults, often with ill-prepared and poorly trained soldiers. It barely worked in World War II, and it was noted then that by 1945 most of the Russian soldiers were from Central Asian parts of Russia. These men were rarely trusted to serve as front line infantry but at the end of the war there were few Slavic Russians available. In Ukraine history has repeated itself.

I have been repeatedly frustrated that Ukraine has been unable to continuously punish advancing Russian troops with quick, local counter-attacks to hit them at their weakest before they dig in and gain fire support.

Let alone my frustration that the Russians were given time to build the Surovikin Line to absorb the much-telegraphed Ukrainian summer 2023 counteroffensive.

It seems that the lesson of not giving the Russians time to dig in is still a lesson for fighting Russian armies. Despite all this time, Russia remains filled with Russians.

NOTE: Soviet troops advancing during World War II.