In a meeting between Russian President Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu, Putin revealed a strategic plan to reshape the construction of the Russian Ground Forces due to lessons learned from the invasion of Ukraine.
“Based on the experience of conducting a special military operation, we need to think over and make adjustments to the construction of all components of the Armed Forces, including the Ground Forces,”
“Let’s agree that in December at the annual board, after all this work, I repeat once again, including at the expert level, so that the proposals are reported by you and could be adopted,” he stressed.
After the 2008 invasion of Georgia, the Russian military underwent several significant changes, most importantly the dissolution of military districts and the formation of Joint Strategic Operational Areas (OSKs) which sought to make a joint war fighting command based on capability rather than geographic area. The second change was the creation of the Aerospace Forces from the Air Force and Missile Forces in 2015.
Some changes that Shoigu could be considering is the structure in which Russian artillery units fall under ground commanders. Open source analysts have concluded that massed artillery has been less effective when these organic firing units fall under individual maneuver units, leading some to believe that maneuver units could be reorganized without organic artillery, opting instead for large separate artillery units.
After March of 2022, operational units began to carry out combat operations not as large BTGs, but as smaller more maneuverable squad and platoon formations after Ukrainian artillery and drone successes.
Another possible change is the incorporation of drone squadrons in the Aerospace forces instead of commercial off the shelf (COTS) or foreign solutions being supplied directly to drone enablers within the battalion tactical groups (BTG. The Russian military school of unmanned operations was only opened in 2018, so there is much room for TTP development.
Shoigu also told President Putin that the successful mobilization of 218,000 troops in training and deployment of 82,000 to Ukraine has resulted in the reinforcement of all groupings of forces, with more than 1,000 sent to Kherson city.
