{"id":1909120,"date":"2023-04-03T07:57:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T11:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lessons-learned-from-russias-ukraine-invasion\/"},"modified":"2023-04-03T08:01:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T12:01:14","slug":"lessons-learned-from-russias-ukraine-invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lessons-learned-from-russias-ukraine-invasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned from Russia\u2019s Ukraine Invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flessons-learned-from-russias-ukraine-invasion%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1909120&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><span><\/p>\n<p>This was genocide. Plain and simple.<\/p>\n<p>After discovering what Russian troops had done in the places around Kyiv they\u2019d briefly occupied, Ukrainians understood they were no longer fighting for their freedom. They were fighting for their survival. And it\u2019s hard to fathom making any concessions to an enemy that is committing genocide against your own people.<\/p>\n<h2>Transformation<\/h2>\n<p>Looking back, it\u2019s clear that the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, and the ensuing eight years of limited warfare in the Donbas, turbocharged all the changes that Ukraine needed to make in order to survive this past year. Things like Ukraine\u2019s spirit of innovation, independent thinking, and entrepreneurship. These qualities transformed civil society, as well as the military, giving soldiers the freedom to innovate new tactics and technologies and to have the flexible mindsets needed to rapidly field a mix of Western weapons.<\/p>\n<p>When Russia invaded in 2014, Ukraine\u2019s regular army was depleted by decades of post-Soviet corruption and could muster no more than a few thousand combat-ready soldiers. With Ukraine\u2019s regular army on its heels, a nationwide, grassroots resistance movement took shape. Known as the \u201cvolunteer battalions,\u201d these irregular units generally comprised men and women with little or no military experience, including native Russian and Ukrainian speakers from all regions of Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Volunteers learned how to be soldiers while in combat, a baptism by fire they jokingly referred to as \u201cnatural selection\u201d boot camp. It was a grassroots war effort, underscoring a widespread attitude of self-reliance among Ukrainian citizens who were unwilling to wait for the government to save them in a moment of crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>People stand next to fragments of military equipment on the street in the aftermath of an apparent Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. AP photo by Andrew Marienko.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-41672bb6b562448ba7fe021bf6133984\">\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>Those changes paid huge dividends this year, allowing Ukraine\u2019s combat leaders to make their own decisions based on battlefield realities rather than taking play-by-play orders from some faraway commander, as the Russians still do.<\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian pilots also relied on their creativity and courage to stay in the fight, despite their technological and numerical disadvantages. After the Russians destroyed many of the Ukrainians\u2019 ground-based navigation aids, the Ukrainian pilots improvised ad hoc solutions to navigate their aircraft. One MiG-29 fighter pilot told me he sometimes flew combat missions using a handheld Garmin GPS unit \u2014 the same kind you might use on a cross-country road trip. His fellow pilots flew so low to stay under the Russians\u2019 radars that they sometimes returned with street signs embedded in their air intakes.<\/p>\n<p>To escape Russian missiles in between missions, the Ukrainian air force used makeshift runways and bases. And yet they stayed in the fight, and to this day, the Russian air force has never achieved anything close to air superiority over all of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>One Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot, whose callsign is \u201cJuice,\u201d told me:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe it\u2019s stupid, but we don\u2019t give a shit about technologies \u2014 we\u2019re just trying to do everything with what we\u2019ve got. It\u2019s our land, it\u2019s our families, it\u2019s our cities. We are defending them. That\u2019s the main motivation for us. And we succeed in this because the Russians are surprised. They are fucking surprised \u2026 Because they were not expecting resistance in the air at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-d7a2b8537d064e04a9198faad4a9ec89\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Juice, pictured in the cockpit of a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet, spoke exclusively to Coffee or Die in March 2022. Photo courtesy of Juice\/Ukrainian Air Force.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>For its part, the Russian air force appears to have been complacent after years of flying in the uncontested airspace over Syria. And that complacency likely contributed to their underestimation of Ukraine\u2019s air force. Similarly, many Ukrainian veterans of the Battle of Kyiv have told me that, in their minds, the Russians they faced were not psychologically prepared for the harsh realities of combat.<\/p>\n<p>Some Russian units didn\u2019t even know they were going to war until the last minute. Some Russian units brought along parade uniforms, expecting a triumphant march down Kyiv\u2019s Khreshchatyk Boulevard after a few easy days of combat. Yet Moscow\u2019s initial invasion plan fell apart after it encountered a ferocious adversary who was dug in and fighting smart.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine\u2019s combat veterans were particularly instrumental in those early days of the war. Many rejoined the regular army. Others served in territorial defense units or spearheaded volunteer operations. Many veteran combat pilots also rejoined their former units and quickly regained proficiency in their warplanes while flying combat missions.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the full-scale invasion, Ukraine had more than 400,000 combat veterans of the war in the Donbas. That pool of manpower comprised the country\u2019s first group of reservists, known as Operational Reserve-1, who were rapidly mobilized and integrated into active combat units.<\/p>\n<p>Among their comrades, mobilized Ukrainian veterans were nicknamed the \u201cdinosaurs.\u201d Not only were they proficient soldiers, but those veterans \u2014 especially those who served in 2014 and 2015 \u2014 also played the invaluable role of mentoring newer troops who had never faced lethal danger or experienced the chaos of combat.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-e6d692a6e16b46279cabe3cee5a5d0b3\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Emergency personnel work at the scene following a drone attack in Rzhyshchiv, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 22, 2023. AP photo by Efrem Lukatsky.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>Many of the volunteer soldiers I\u2019ve interviewed this past year, most of whom had little or no military experience before the full-scale war, credited their survival to the lessons and the examples handed down to them by combat veterans of the Donbas. Across the spectrum of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces, the positive impact of all that practical knowledge passed on by the dinosaurs far exceeded what a new recruit might learn in basic training.<\/p>\n<p>The trench war in the Donbas served as a prelude to many of the headline-grabbing trends of the full-scale war. Those eight years spurred many of the innovations we\u2019ve seen from the Ukrainians this past year. The use of small drones, for example. As far back as the summer of 2014, I observed Ukrainian units jury-rigging commercial, off-the-shelf drones for use in ISR, as well as for dropping small munitions on their enemies.<\/p>\n<p>The Russians also adapted the use of small drones for reconnaissance and dropping weapons years before the full-scale invasion. Consequently, the Ukrainians became significantly more \u201cdrone conscious.\u201d They avoided gathering outside, especially in clear weather, and they camouflaged their trenches and dugouts from aerial reconnaissance. During winter, after the leaves fell and there was less natural concealment, Ukrainian troops paid particular attention to concealing their movements and positions.<\/p>\n<p>At a front-line post near Luhansk in 2021, a Ukrainian lieutenant named Illia told me, \u201cIt puts you under constant pressure when you always expect something from the air. You can never relax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being out there, under that constant threat, made me reflect on my own military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, where we had relatively safe places to relax and decompress between missions. That\u2019s a luxury the Ukrainians do not enjoy \u2014 even when they are back home with their families in places like Kyiv and Kharkiv.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-ad7afa302c6f46bdaecd4dc283366e4f\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Oleg, 13, holds a training weapon at a military training course with the Georgian National Legion in Kyiv on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. Photo by Nolan Peterson\/Coffee or Die.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-52d942013e0c45f9b3d49c182aa2e17e\">\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>The conflict from 2014 to 2022 also taught Ukrainians invaluable lessons in the perils of Russia\u2019s electronic warfare threats. Many Ukrainian units conceal their electromagnetic emissions the same way they camouflage their physical presence on the battlefield.<\/p>\n<p>In my opinion, the electronic warfare environment is one of the most underreported aspects of the war. Before the invasion, I stocked up on satellite phones and radios and solar panel charges and all sorts of stuff, thinking that Russian EW systems and cyberattacks were basically going to send Ukraine back to the Stone Age, as far as communications and internet connectivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That sort of urban blackout never happened. But on the front lines, GPS jamming and signals interference play a key role in the conflict. On the front lines, Ukrainians are constantly on guard against not clustering their electromagnetic emissions. Basically, every time they flip on a piece of electronic equipment or transmit a signal, they accept the fact that they have exposed themselves to the Russians.<\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian critical infrastructure sites and important political and military sites are generally defended by GPS-jamming units meant to interfere with inbound Russian missiles and Shahed drones. But that defensive jamming can sometimes have a collateral interference effect on some air defense systems and other technologies that the Ukrainians are using to defend against those inbound threats.<\/p>\n<p>On Ukraine\u2019s front lines, you can\u2019t always depend on GPS or constant communications. When all your high-tech tools stop working, you have to be ready to adapt workaround solutions. Again, as a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have to say that that constant feeling of exposure and that constant need to conceal your presence, both visually and electronically, is a very alien state of mind.<\/p>\n<p>And, after a while, it gets exhausting.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-2ff52cabe73b4256b72610eed7fe0d40\">\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3e03JjsDA2U?rel=0&#038;enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fcoffeeordie.com\" allowfullscreen scrolling=\"no\" allow=\"accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-67881341_16=\"true\" id=\"718890841\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-9=\"true\" title=\"Kyiv Hit With Airstrikes Following Kerch Bridge Bombing\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<h2>Civil Resilience<\/h2>\n<p>For eight years, places like Kyiv remained quarantined from the physical effects of daily combat hundreds of miles away in the eastern Donbas region. The war was always there, but outside the war zone, life went on basically as normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The war was an abstraction for most Ukrainians, a series of sad news stories that they were able to tune out as they went about their daily routines. Consequently, the war became an unequally shared burden within Ukrainian society. Soldiers returning home from combat often felt isolated and out of place. As a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, that disconnect felt very familiar to me.<\/p>\n<p>But the full-scale war changed all that.<\/p>\n<p>No corner of Ukraine is currently spared from Russia\u2019s invasion, and it\u2019s an all-hands-on-deck effort to defend the homeland. The spirit of volunteerism among Ukraine\u2019s civilians, which saved their country from disaster in 2014, kicked into overdrive when the full-scale war began. Literally overnight, Ukraine\u2019s civil society mobilized to support the war effort.<\/p>\n<p>Local defense forces rapidly fortified the entire country and built checkpoints around every settlement \u2014 from Kyiv to the smallest village.\u00a0Along the main roads, militias stacked tires to be set ablaze as smokescreens against Russian forces. Volunteers took down road signs with the names of villages and towns in order to confuse the advancing Russians.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-d08f0675e52049cfba20fbb92a4287a2\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Members of Ukraine&#8217;s Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022. Hundreds of civilians joined Ukraine&#8217;s army reserves in the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion. AP photo by Efrem Lukatsky.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>In my wife\u2019s hometown of Horishni Plavni, the war galvanized the city\u2019s population. No one wanted to sit idle \u2014 they felt compelled to do whatever they could to support the war effort. Volunteers gathered food for soldiers and refugees at the local library. In the local performing arts hall, where Lilly used to dance ballet, hundreds of people of all ages worked day and night to sew camouflage netting for soldiers on the front lines. When parting ways, people started saying things like \u201ceverything will be okay\u201d or \u201cuntil victory\u201d rather than offering a simple goodbye.<\/p>\n<p>For an outsider, it was striking to witness. The Russian army was bearing down on this place, and yet rather than submit to fear or focus on personal priorities, these Ukrainians volunteered to help their community and their army.<\/p>\n<p>Olena Dudko, the director of Horishni Plavni\u2019s library, told me: \u201cI\u2019m extremely proud of our nation, and I know it\u2019s impossible for Russia to defeat us. This is our land, and we will stand our ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Across the country, Ukrainians were similarly able to instantly adapt to wartime life without their society unraveling. And after more than one year of full-scale warfare, Ukrainians are now more united than they ever were during the past three decades of post-Soviet independence.<\/p>\n<p>Part of that society-resistance effort was due to planning by the Ukrainian government. In May 2021, Ukraine\u2019s parliament adopted a new law, titled: \u201cOn the Fundamentals of National Resistance.\u201d This law, which fully went into effect in January 2022, enshrined civilian resistance as a key component of Ukraine\u2019s national defense against a Russian invasion.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-47c334e6e13040cab478015ea0b4539d\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>People, including Ukrainians, take part in a demonstration in support of Ukraine outside the Russian Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. AP photo by Raul Mee.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>Based on the \u201ccomprehensive defense\u201d systems in NATO countries such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Ukraine\u2019s national resistance concept was built around three pillars \u2014 Territorial Defense Forces, mobilized civilians in irregular resistance units, and military training for the civilian population.<\/p>\n<p>For their part, Territorial Defense units played key roles in saving Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv. And Ukraine\u2019s resistance units, operating under Special Forces Command, also proved valuable in the early days of the full-scale war. Mobilized civilian partisans provided intelligence about enemy locations, and they took part in sabotage operations. In my wife\u2019s hometown, which was never occupied, National Resistance Movement force partisans stockpiled weapons and Molotov cocktails, and they patrolled for Russian collaborators passing on intelligence for Russian missile and drone strikes.<\/p>\n<p>After the invasion, Ukrainian SOF launched the National Resistance Center website to support the partisan movement. The website offers tips on guerrilla warfare and provides a way to anonymously report Russian military locations. The National Resistance Center\u2019s slogan is: \u201cEach one of us can resist the enemy and do his part for victory. Together, we will turn the enemies\u2019 lives into hell.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, National Resistance Movement partisans developed into an effective irregular force. They do both kinetic and non-kinetic operations \u2014 including protests and the assassinations of pro-Russian collaborators and Russian occupation authorities. They also harass Russian troops in occupied areas, drawing resources away from front-line fighting.<\/p>\n<p>While the National Resistance Movement is a relatively new concept, Ukraine\u2019s nationwide network of Territorial Defense Forces was not a new idea in 2022. Most of these units formed in the immediate wake of Russia\u2019s 2014 invasion. Their original purpose was to act as an operational reserve for the regular armed forces and to defend their local areas.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-2ceb68aa0d86465aa0e9dd1e2ba70614\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Rumia, 59, a member of Ukraine&#8217;s Territorial Defense Forces, trains close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022. AP photo by Efrem Lukatsky, File.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-d4419a71dae540f0ac00479761168ee6\">\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>These were not weekend warriors or wannabe soldiers. These were civilians who saw it as their duty to defend their families, their neighborhoods, and their homeland.<\/p>\n<p>Although Ukraine\u2019s territorial defense units fall under the regular military\u2019s chain of command, each Ukrainian region, or \u201coblast,\u201d is responsible for standing up its own territorial defense brigade. During the full-scale war, territorial defense troops have generally performed fundamental tasks \u2014 such as manning checkpoints or defending fixed positions \u2014 thereby freeing up regular army personnel for more skills-intensive, dynamic operations.<\/p>\n<h2>Attrition<\/h2>\n<p>In the summer of 2015, I embedded with the Ukrainian army in the front-line town of Pisky. While I was there, I befriended a 53-year-old soldier named Vasiliy Ivaskiv. A coal miner, Vasiliy called me \u201cAmerica,\u201d and he had a habit of using his body to shield me from sniper fire during the eight days I spent embedded with his unit. He may have been older than most soldiers, but Vasiliy was built from steel, and he outlasted men less than half his age on daylong patrols.<\/p>\n<p>When he first volunteered for war in 2015, Vasiliy said his wife collapsed in the doorway. Sobbing, she begged him not to go.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was nothing she could do to stop me,\u201d he explained. \u201cI had to go. It was my duty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-a79b861e81e941768c5ba7fd5792a46d\">\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8Flf1grUWCU?rel=0&#038;enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fcoffeeordie.com\" allowfullscreen scrolling=\"no\" allow=\"accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share;\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-67881341_16=\"true\" id=\"51582428\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-9=\"true\" title=\"In the Trenches of Russia\u2019s War Against Ukraine\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>When the full-scale war began last February, Vasiliy \u2014 who was by then 60 years old \u2014 returned to active duty. He died in combat near Izyum on Aug. 24, 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine lost many of its most experienced soldiers in the first year of the war.<\/p>\n<p>As the war drags on, and as attritional battles like Bakhmut continue to take their toll, Ukraine\u2019s ranks have thinned of soldiers with combat experience prior to 2022, as well as those who participated in Western training programs, like the US-led mission at Yavoriv in Western Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Combat attrition has forced the Ukrainian military to mobilize thousands of new recruits under the national draft. Under the current law, all physically fit Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are subject to conscription. My 57-year-old father-in-law, a Soviet army veteran of the Afghanistan era, falls into the group, and he\u2019s currently assisting his city\u2019s territorial defense force.<\/p>\n<p>During the first few months of 2023, Ukraine has stepped up its national mobilization activities, and Ukrainian lawmakers are also trying to close loopholes for draft dodgers. This increased enforcement of the draft likely reflects the heavy toll of attritional battles, such as in Bakhmut.<\/p>\n<p>According to some Ukrainian commanders, many of these new recruits lack sufficient training and are not psychologically prepared for the intensity of full-scale, conventional warfare. Thus, as the experience level and proficiency of the average Ukrainian soldier drops, there\u2019s a risk that Ukraine\u2019s forces could lose some of that flexibility and adaptability that gave them a qualitative edge over the Russians at the war\u2019s outset.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-6e41d9fc71884b2c9e1c2523c1491f0c\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>A Ukrainian civilian trains at a shooting range outside of Kyiv with the Georgian National Legion on Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. Photo by Nolan Peterson\/Coffee or Die.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, the Russians have also tried to adapt and incorporate some tenets of mission command in their operations. Russian forces are now reportedly moving away from the battalion tactical group, which was their primary combined arms formation at the war\u2019s outset.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to a recent report by the Hudson Institute: \u201cThe once-vaunted [battalion tactical group] has failed to meet the requirements of large-scale operations in a prolonged interstate war, lacking the tactical flexibility and adaptive edge required for modern warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thus, Russian military planners have devised a lighter, more flexible force generation pattern. Their new task force, named the \u201cassault detachment,\u201d comprises two or three companies and prioritizes tactical flexibility and freedom of movement in small-unit operations. This new formation mimics, in some ways, Wagner\u2019s way of warfighting, which gives commanders greater flexibility to fight as they see fit and to find and exploit weak points.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, the majority of Russia\u2019s professional military was wiped out in the war\u2019s opening months. Consequently, the Russians depend on ill-trained and unmotivated conscripts to fill their ranks. These troops are often press-ganged into service and drawn from a culture that does not value individual initiative and out-of-the-box thinking.<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s soldiers are products of the civil society that produced them, and it is unrealistic to expect a new Russian recruit, who grew up in a police state, to demonstrate individual initiative and creativity on the battlefield. Thus, the Russians can try to reorganize their forces to become more flexible and adaptive, but, in my opinion, those changes won\u2019t make a decisive difference on the battlefield.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-4d6ea9bfe3d04bf78ba5120a8096b84f\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Civilian trainees participate in a military training course with the Georgian National Legion in Kyiv on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. Photo by Nolan Peterson\/Coffee or Die Magazine.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<h2>Non-Specialists<\/h2>\n<p>Another attribute of the typical Ukrainian soldier that I\u2019d like to highlight is their general handiness, or \u201cMacGyverness,\u201d for lack of a better term. Most Ukrainians, even those with white-collar jobs, possess a wealth of practical knowledge and skills that exceed those of the average American.<\/p>\n<p>In middle school, male Ukrainian students attend shop classes and learn basic auto mechanics. Female students take housekeeping classes, learning how to cook, sew, and other practical skills. In high school, Ukrainian students, both male and female, take classes in basic military skills, including marksmanship and first aid. Consequently, one of the greatest assets for Ukraine in this war has been its population\u2019s baseline level of practical know-how.<\/p>\n<p>These are people who can take care of themselves. They know how to survive on very little and work with what they have at hand. And that versatility applies to pilots, as well.<\/p>\n<p>The early days of the war were nerve-wracking for Ukraine\u2019s combat pilots \u2014 both in terms of the air war and the persistent threats faced on the ground between missions. Juice, the MiG-29 pilot, told me his home base was hit by missiles, airstrikes, and helicopter attacks \u2014 and they also faced the constant threat of raids by Russian special operations units. So, between combat sorties, Juice threw on a body armor vest and grabbed a gun to help defend his air base from the ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was something terrible, we had a lot of threats around the airfield,\u201d he told me. \u201cI was preparing for this, but I was still not ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<div builder-id=\"builder-24c95da65e314b63a3a7abd7c2ea8d39\"><picture><source  type=\"image\/webp\"><\/picture><\/div>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><sup>Oleksandr, an injured Ukrainian soldier, smokes a cigarette before evacuation by volunteers of the Hospitallers paramedic organization near a special medical bus in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 22, 2023. AP photo by Evgeniy Maloletka.<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was genocide. Plain and simple.After discovering what Russian troops had done in the places around Kyiv they\u2019d briefly occupied, Ukrainians understood they were no longer fighting for their freedom. They were fighting for their survival. And it\u2019s hard to fathom making any concessions to an enemy that is committing genocide against your own people.TransformationLooking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1909121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[10889,6378,7843,9987,6991],"class_list":["post-1909120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-invasion","tag-learned","tag-lessons","tag-russias","tag-ukraine"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1909121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}