A Ukrainian serviceman prepares to fire a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) from a launcher during a training exercise in the Donetsk region on April 7, 2023.

A Ukrainian serviceman prepares to fire a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) from a launcher during a training exercise in the Donetsk region on April 7, 2023. AFP via Getty Images / GENYA SAVILOV

Some Ukrainian Troops Are Still Using Soviet Methods, Despite US Training

One year into the conflict, younger officers still strain against older leaders’ ways, military experts note.

Soon after Ukraine blunted Russia’s 2022 invasion, senior U.S. officials attributed some of the defenders' success to the help Americans had provided them before the war’s start. 

Training with U.S. troops transformed Ukraine’s Soviet-style military to a more NATO-style force, then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in April 2022.

"They have better command and control," he said. “That didn't happen by accident.”

U.S. and allied training made Ukraine a “more battlefield-effective” force, a senior Defense Department official added.  

But experts and one U.S. officer involved in the process say that while the training did help, it isn’t possible to draw a straight line to Ukraine's success. Experts in particular pointed to a Ukrainian officer-corps still rife with Soviet-style thinking. 

U.S. Army Col. Andrew Clark has commanded the service’s Security Assistance Training Management Organization since August 2021. Among the organization’s responsibilities is teaching other countries U.S. military strategies through its Doctrine Education Advisory Group.

The unit had members stationed in Ukraine before the outbreak of the war and they worked to revise the teaching curriculum at the Ukrainian staff colleges that trained the country’s officers. Their work was akin to a gentle push that gradually improves a partner’s force over time, Clark said. “We build these small custom teams for a long-term engagement,” he said. Some members even lived full-time in Ukraine. 

By contrast, the U.S. soldiers training Ukrainian forces in Germany now have no prior training in security assistance. 

Clark’s team in particular worked on helping the Ukrainians embrace the decentralized decision-making process that defines U.S. military practice. Under this doctrine, senior officers set a goal and more junior officers use their own initiative to accomplish it, a method that contrasts to the Soviet Union’s more hierarchical approach. 

But Clark was cautious about assessing his team’s impact on Ukraine. “I can’t say how well it permeated, " he said, “this was all a work in progress.”

Still, Western military reforms were at least somewhat helpful, particularly as they came alongside significant social change in Ukraine, Will Reno, a professor at Northwestern University, told Defense One in an interview. Ukraine began seeking greater integration with Europe and the United States after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and sponsored a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. 

However, it’s difficult to link specific foreign efforts prior to 2022 to Ukraine’s military success against Russia, said Jahara Matisek, an associate professor in the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the U.S. Air Force Academy. 

U.S. assistance at the time “was very small and pinprick, precisely because the U.S. and NATO were trying so hard to not provoke Russia,” he said.  

Matisek recounted seeing little NATO-style training evident during a visit to Ukraine’s Odesa military academy in 2021. There was “no concept” of mission command doctrine, the NATO-style training that emphasizes initiative among lower-ranked officers, he said.  

Younger officers he met were different. They had combat experience from fighting in eastern Ukraine, and bought into the U.S. military’s way of waging war.

“It was pretty clear to me that there was a divide” between the young Ukrainian military personnel and the colonels who were 40 years or older, he said. 

Reno, the Northwestern professor, recently traveled to southern Ukraine and spoke with two Ukrainian military units—one mechanized infantry unit near Odesa and one of the new battalions Ukraine formed to make up for wartime losses. The tension between younger, more independent-minded officers and more senior Soviet-influenced officers was clear, even after a year of war with Russia. Soldiers complained of Soviet-style leaders who provided inadequate training. In one instance Reno heard about, combat engineers learning de-mining techniques were told to use pot lids as mock mines. They were then told to practice their skills by miming defusing the pot-lids. 

The soldiers instead taught themselves how to work as sappers, but couldn’t get certified by the military because the training wasn’t official, he said. Several Ukrainians soldiers Reno spoke with complained that individuals who did complete official courses would be certified, but not actually competent in their assigned specialties. 

In the absence of instruction from higher-ups, many younger soldiers are taking matters into their own hands. Reno described lieutenants finding U.S. and Israeli videos on doctrine and translating them into Ukrainian to teach themselves necessary skills. 

Ukraine’s high casualties in the war may also have watered down the effect of any Western training provided before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. In November of last year, Gen. Mark Milley said Ukraine had probably suffered a similar number of wounded and dead to Russia, which he said had taken more than 100,000 casualties since the start of the war.  

“Some units may have had the benefit of us or other Western engagements,” Clark said, “but you may have new, provisional units that had no benefit of us.” 

Looking back on the six years his group spent training Ukraine, Clark said he would have wished for 20 years more to train the troops to fight back before Russia’s invasion.

“I would have loved to have many more years,” he said, “If I knew a country was going into war, you want as much time as you can.” 

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.