Ukraine must embrace West’s ‘manoeuvre warfare’ instead of being dragged into traditional Russian-style combat
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been brutal and attritional, and has shocked most of the “civilised” world.
Russia’s evident disregard for casualties and collateral damage in the pursuit of victory is very different to the West’s approach to warfare, which has profound implications for the war in Ukraine, and the West’s wider defence planning assumptions.
The legacy of two world wars – wars of attrition with massive casualties – led the West to re-think its military doctrine.
Although wars are fought by soldiers, they are waged between leaders, and indiscriminate destruction is not conducive to winning the post-conflict peace.
As a result, Western militaries have developed manoeuvre warfare, which leverages high-tech weapons to destroy the enemy’s will to fight.
However, Russia and Ukraine share much of their heritage, history and tradition.
Medieval wars were fought between combatants in a brutal battle to the last – with limited tactics and a focus on hand-to-hand combat.
Innovative weapons were viewed with a degree of suspicion – the medieval crossbow drew greater debate about its ethical use, as did the introduction of firearms centuries later.
The strongest, most numerous, and bravest prevailed.
Read more:
‘I want Putin to die’ – Shock and anger after dozens of Russian missiles hit Kyiv
‘Barbaric’ Russian missile and drone airstrikes
Bakhmut will show who is winning the war – but at what cost?
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Why is Bakhmut so important?
Russia’s “Goliath” wants to engage Ukraine’s “David” in a war of attrition which it would be confident it would – eventually – win.
Conversely, Ukraine needs to find a way to leverage Western high-tech weapons to create its own military advantage.
However, culturally this presents a challenge to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy – fight Russia in a traditional gladiatorial manner or adapt to survive.
The prolonged and bloody battle for Bakhmut has exposed this clash of cultures.
Bakhmut is not a significant military objective; however, it has become highly symbolic.
The US military evidently favours a strategic withdrawal to preserve limited Ukrainian warfighting capability for the battles ahead – a manoeuvrist approach.
Russia and Ukraine are embroiled in a bloody battle for Bakhmut
However, President Zelenskyy has elected to reinforce the city, thus being dragged into a war of attrition that risks favouring Russia.
“War does not determine who is right – only who is left,” British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said.
There will be no victors in this war, but neither side can afford to lose.
Ukraine knows the supply of Western technology is not unlimited – so ultimately Ukraine’s priority is to survive.
Click to subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts
Mr Zelenskyy faces difficult choices.
His instinct might be to engage in gladiatorial battles of attrition; however, if Ukraine is to survive it must preserve its limited resources, erode Russia’s will and ability to fight, and then rebuild.
As for the West, technology has proven a decisive military capability in this conflict, but assumptions of stockpiles of expensive weapons have proven woefully inadequate.
A manoeuvrist approach to warfare saves lives, preserves infrastructure, and can be decisive, but “vision without funding is hallucination”. Can the West afford to resource it adequately?
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
More from Sky News:
Trump doubles down on Putin criticism
Why Russian troops are gathering near ‘fortress city’
In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan
Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
Read more:
Gaza doctor’s nine children killed
How the new Gaza aid rollout collapsed
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway