Lyman Debacle: NATO is Really Bad at Maneuver Warfare

NATO has a problem; it’s a “defensive military alliance” designed for conventional warfare, but the one thing they’re consistently really, really bad at is… conventional warfare. Ukrainian soldiers supported by NATO HIMARS, intelligence, battle planning, and leadership, set out to encircle a much smaller force of Russians, waded through artillery fire for days, then failed to close the fourth side, allowing everyone inside the cauldron to quietly escape. Let’s take a look at what happened.

Background

In my first post about Lyman, I wrote:

Over the past several days Ukraine has mounted a huge three-sided offensive at an important supply hub in the Donetsk People’s Republic. The sizeable combined arms attack is accompanied by a worldwide propaganda campaign. Apparently, NATO anticipates a victory here and is throwing every available Ukrainian conscript against the barrels of Russian guns. This battle is unique, and significant, for multiple reasons...

I have seen no estimates of the forces on both sides, but an envelopment of this scale would require at least several thousand soldiers. Including the support echelon, there are probably 10-15 thousand Ukrainian soldiers in the general vicinity. This is also much more sophisticated than their earlier offensives like in Kherson and Kharkov, something like this would take a fairly high degree of command and control (C2). This might be Ukraine’s most ambitious attempt at maneuver warfare since their disastrous and humiliating defeats in 2014-15...

From this admittedly limited information, there are some important takeaways:

-Russians not retreating means they have inevitably suffered losses, will continue to suffer losses, and trying to retreat now would be difficult and costly.

-Ukrainians attacking on three sides exposes the Russian defenders to a lot of fire, but also exposes themselves to fire. Actually, exponentially more fire. The Russian garrison has had time to prepare so must have pre-registered artillery targets. This means wherever and whenever Ukrainians attack, even at night, as long as someone sees it coming, friendly artillery can be called down on that position with a push of a button. Since this has gone on for several days and nights, Ukrainian casualties must be staggering.

NATO’s Goal

The game was encirclement, and that’s the theme NATO and neo-nazi propagandists focused on. a town of that size would probably have, at most, 500-1,000 soldiers. As I stated in my previous post linked earlier, the entire Ukrainian force involved in the entire operation probably involved 10,000 or 15,000 soldiers. This would be enough numerical superiority to surround Lyman with enough strength at any one point to beat back Russian attempts to break out. This would also, presumably, be enough to fight off Russian attempts to rescue the garrison. The apparent timeline of the operation? To capture Lyman and all the Russian soldiers in it on 30 September, right as Putin was holding his special ceremony to recognize four independent republics of the former Ukraine.

Naturally, the biggest concern of the week was that NATO would successfully surround a significant number of Russian forces and capture them. With huge numbers of infantry supported by tanks, IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles) and HIMARS launchers, there was no reason for the Ukrainian forces to fail to complete the encirclement. But then… they did fail.

The Failure

On 30 September, journalist Yuri Podolyaka claimed that Russian forces had begun an operation to deblockade the Lyman garrison. All friendly forces retreated from Lyman the next day on 1 October.

From Military Review:

Toward the end of the day, the Russian Defense Ministry published a summary of the events on the fronts of the military special operation. The main attention is focused on the events near the city of Krasny Liman, where fighting has been going on for the past few weeks.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation confirms the information that there was a threat of encirclement of the allied forces, as a result, the troops from Kr. Liman were reportedly withdrawn to more advantageous lines.

This statement was received differently by various military commanders and military experts. Some are wondering why Krasny Liman itself could not be turned into a profitable line of defense, others believe that it was in Krasny Liman that the forces that were there recently did even more than was possible. The former believe that the allied forces were defeated near Krasny Liman, the latter are sure that all the prerequisites have been created for the enemy’s extended forces to eventually suffer defeat. As can be seen, the interpretations, if not diametrically opposed, then differ in many respects.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, commenting on the situation, reports that the enemy threw more and more reserves into battle, achieving superiority in the Krasny Liman region both in manpower and in means.

Russian sources claim that in the attacks against Lyman, more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, five tanks and IFVs destroyed. Such casualties are consistent with one or more assaults that were repulsed. There’s no way to know for sure, but I suspect most or all of those casualties were from Russian fire and close air support, and the initial Ukrainian attacks were insufficient in size to sustain such losses and still overcome resistance from the defenders of Lyman. It makes little sense for such a careless attack to happen with insufficient preparation, but remember that they were on a timeline. Those soldiers died because of their NATO officers’ unrealistic goal of capturing Lyman in time to embarrass Putin and ruin his ceremony on 30 September. Remember there’s a general 3:1 ratio for wounded and killed, and the Ukrainians endured equally bitter fighting and shelling in villages and forests surrounding Lyman. It’s not impossible, or far-fetched, to suggest that the Ukrainian forces tasked with putting Lyman in a pocket suffered 10% or even 20% casualties to do it. And still failed to actually fulfill their goal of trapping the garrison.

I’m not dismissing the territorial gains made by the Ukrainian armed forces. But I am pointing out that territorial gains mean very little, especially when NATO and Ukraine laid out very specific intentions for this maneuver and failed to deliver. NATO won’t defeat Russia by capturing tiny villages, and they certainly won’t win by suffering monstrous casualties each time. This failure isn’t unprecedented. in post-WWII history, NATO has

Historical Precedent: Hamburger Hill

The 1969 Battle of Hamburger Hill took place on Hill 937. More than 1,200 American airlifted on helicopters and supported by aircraft and artillery, launched a full frontal assault against heavily entrenched Vietnamese soldiers. Ten days later, the first American forces reached the peak, but at the cost of 72 (and 31 South Vietnamese) dead, and 372 wounded. Afterward, American officials claimed that the enemy had lost 630 soldiers while defending Hamburger Hill, and the US military is famous for never lying or exaggerating enemy casualties. From the Wikipedia page:

US estimates of the losses incurred by the PAVN 7th and 8th Battalions of the 29th Regiment included 630 dead (bodies discovered on and around the battlefield); including many found in makeshift mortuaries within the tunnel complex. There is no count of the PAVN running off the mountain, those killed by artillery and air strikes, the wounded and dead carried into Laos or the dead buried in collapsed bunkers and tunnels. During the ten-day battle, US forces captured 89 individual weapons and 22 crew‑served weapons

The final assault on Hamburger Hill. Four infantry battalions are shown participating in the assault, the little bird symbol in three of the battalions means airborne. Note the ARVN battalion in the East. Looking at the topography of this map and remembering this is all jungle, it’s easy to understand why surrounding an enemy is easier said than done.

Once American forces neared the top of Hamburger Hill, Vietnamese soldiers who had survived up to that point apparently still had a clear path to escape, which completely defeated the point of attacking them in the first place. Hamburger Hill, though technically a victory for the USA, is remembered as a microcosm for the Vietnam War: incoherent goals, poor planning, and foolish waste of life eventually leading to bitter failure.

Historical Precedent 2: Operation Anaconda

In 2002, early in the ill-fated Afghan war, there was Operation Anaconda. From Wikipedia:

Operation Anaconda was a military operation that took place in early March 2002 as part of the War in Afghanistan. CIA paramilitary officers, working with their allies, attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. The operation took place in the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains southeast of Zormat. This operation was the first large-scale battle in the post-2001 War in Afghanistan since the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001. This was the first operation in the Afghanistan theater to involve a large number of U.S. forces participating in direct combat activities.

Between March 2 and March 16, 2002 1,700 airlifted U.S. troops and 1,000 pro-government Afghan militia battled between 300 and 1,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters to obtain control of the valley. The Taliban and al-Qaeda forces fired mortars and heavy machine guns from entrenched positions in the caves and ridges of the mountainous terrain at U.S. forces attempting to secure the area. Afghan Taliban commander Maulavi Saif-ur-Rehman Mansoor later led Taliban reinforcements to join the battle. U.S. forces had estimated the strength of the rebels in the Shahi-Kot Valley at 150 to 200, but later information suggested the actual strength was of 500 to 1,000 fighters. The U.S. forces estimated they had killed at least 500 fighters over the duration of the battle, however journalists later noted that only 23 bodies were found – and critics suggested that after a couple days, the operation “was more driven by media obsession, than military necessity”.

I feel like Operation Anaconda’s similarities to the NATO-controlled offensive against Lyman are self-explanatory.

The Propaganda, oh God, the Propaganda!

When I write about battles, I try, when possible, to give a clear idea of the proportions of what happened. However, pro-NATO outlets don’t do this and the Lyman battle was no exception. They deliberately lied to their readers, and no one even tried to accurately gauge the size and scale of the battle. CNN published propaganda piece after propaganda piece heralding the upcoming destruction of the Russian military. Ukrainian propaganda claimed 5,000 Russian soldiers were in the town. Austrian painter Tom Cooper, who has spent the last 7 months masturbating to pictures of Ukrainian and Russian corpses, made an even more ridiculous claim. That there were least five regiment-sized units trapped inside Lyman:

Know only that — between others — entire or at least elements of following Russian and Separatist units were inside, the last few days:

– Bars-13

– Bars-16 (also known as ‘Kuban’ unit; this unit used to have 1,000 combatants; about 400 were inside Lyman)

– 208th ‘Cossack’ Motor Rifle Regiment (LPR)

– 503rd GMRR/19th MRD (was holding Torske, i.e. the way in and out)

– 753rd GMRR

Look, any time you see someone spouting off lists of units allegedly in a position, regardless of that person’s political persuasions or how reliable you think he is, take it with a grain of salt. A soldier is assigned under the administrative control (ADCON) of a brigade or regiment, but that doesn’t tell you much. In combat, subordinate units tend to split from their parent unit and put under the operational control (OPCON) of someone else. For example, when I deployed with an aviation brigade to the Middle East, we had units split up to Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria… Russians use temporary, mission-oriented formations called battalion tactical groups, so trying to extrapolate how many soldiers are in a certain location just from rumors of what parent brigades are present is a bit futile.

This is a great example of how completely and utterly divorced from reality these “experts” are, and how it is utterly pointless to even try to get the “NATO side of the story.” Look at that list again. That’s 11,000 soldiers. I’m glad Tom clarified that there might just be “elements” from those units. Russia might not in fact have put 20% of the entire operation’s combat power in a single village! Again for context, Lyman’s entire pre-war population was 20,000. I have no idea how Tom thinks enough fighting positions for 11,000 soldiers could fit in such a small town, or why they would even want to do that. But really, it’s a moron writing for an audience of morons. In a previous post, Tom claimed that a single HIMARS strike killed or wounded 500 Russian soldiers (this would actually be plausible if Russia was cramming thousands of soldiers into a single house like Tom thinks they do). This is what years of irrational hatred and nazi indoctrination do to a person’s brain, and they are all like this.

Anyway, Tom went on to gloat that the Ukrainians had the Russian untermenschen surrounded:

Of interest is that the ‘final blow’ — the move that closed the pocket — apparently came from the north-east: by an Ukrainian [sic] advance over Ivanivka, Bilohorivka, Terny, and Yampolivka into the eastern side of Zarichne (Torske was cleared of the Russians before that, but, apparently, from the south).

Actually, I like Tom Cooper’s map. He posted it to highlight how the Ukrainians had cut off all retreat, but accidentally predicted the future.

Lyman retreat

Ian Kummer

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17 thoughts on “Lyman Debacle: NATO is Really Bad at Maneuver Warfare”

  1. Lyman was set for disaster from the start of the Ukrainian offensive, I didn’t expect it to be kept. There admittedly were operational mistakes, like underestimating the enemy’s capacity from the start, when the situation at this side aggravated.
    Yet, Lyman case has more promotional value, than strategic. Russian public did take it in its– oh so Slavic, if not Ukrainian– over-emotional manner.
    That said, it’s a Pyrrhic victory for them. Also, there are successes at other parts of the front, but who cares.. , not modern media, I guess. But your analysis is interesting, gives material for thought.

    Reply
    • There are people claiming Russia is loosing the PR war.
      Others claim, Russia gives a s*** on PR.
      However, knowing that enemy’s warfare is run by PR, you can use that to shape the battlefield. As a hunter offers feeding or salt lick in proximity of his raised hide, there can be an offer in the shape of a PR victory. A village here, a little town there. Beware of breaks to long. This will attract the game and all his ressources towards the desired direction – as far from the Western logistics as possible, as close towards own logistics as possible.
      And, the Western mindset tends to be short timed “instant gratification”, so this approach is beyond their (including some westernized Russian bloggers, which serves the purpose) scope. Their mindset is also far from being rational, swinging between hysterics and euphoria. Why shouldn’t the general staff disturb this behaviour? So, whenever some ratio begins to appear, offer some stuff for either of them…

      priwjet

      Reply
    • I get that moron in mailbox… His writings are full of unfounded assertions, but his readers cheer him like some kinda new Clausewitz. Very rarely I try to object but I’m registered with my actual name there so I tend to be cautious.

      Reply
      • It is possible to fill a book with all the idiotic things he’s said. A while ago Tom was ranting to me about how Rosvgardia are Putin’s personal army, and he got even more furious when I told him it’s literally just a gendarmerie style police force and most of them don’t even have guns (I see them all the time in Moscow). He rambles in extreme detail about topics he knows literally nothing about and it’s borderline masochism to read his content.

        Reply
          • Actually, this Putyin’s Army thing is not even our Tommy’s brainchild. This is a fixation of the Western press, one of the many standard pieces of bs they come up with. A few years ago, when the National Guard was established, the Western press went into a frenzy for a week or two about this, and this is established wisdom now. Tommy is a well trained bs master apparently, but otherwise no one remembers this.

            Reply
        • I have a list of Tom Cooper idiotic statements, like this one:

          Tom Cooper: “I wonder if any of Greeks and Serbs so fiercely pro-Putin have realised they’re thus supportive for Chechens and Hezbollah invading and destroying a country (predominantly) populated by Orthodox Christians…?”

          He is blinded with hatred so much that he think that we all see only what mainstream told us: “we have to hate all Chechens and Hezbollah and muslims” (Same thing western media did in Yugoslavia: promoted ethnic war!!!).

          My replay was to listen the talk of Chechen Leader to Ukrainian Prisoners in Mariupol:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9dA3hlMTio – for what values they fight for!

          Reply
  2. Hi Ian, the two precedents you cited are interesting for another reason too, I think. As far as I can remember, Hamburger Hill was acknowledged very early on as a failure, while Operation Anaconda is not really. I mean by the journos and the general public. To me it looks like the general level of awareness about actual facts were much higher back in those days.

    Reply
    • Yes, back then the media was willing to lightly, gently, and carefully critique US policy, but not too much, Ellsberg contacting NYT publishing the Pentagon Papers was swiftly punished Snowden/Manning style. I think in hindsight, post-911 policy of incrementally punishing dissent (like smashing the Guardian’s editorial office with hammers) and rewarding obedience (repeatedly giving CNN exclusive access to “stories” from Ukraine) had a profound and long-lasting effect on the news media’s relationship with the “rules-based world order.”

      Reply
  3. Ian, thanks a lot for posting your commentary. In Poland, the pro-Ukrainian hysteria has reached a new peak, incredible as it may sound, and now it seems almost everybody has fallen for this most bizarre, most ridiculous russophobic propaganda. And this includes all (yes, all) all of my highly educated friends, who have all ceased to be friends when I firmly insisted I do not share their views. I will probably post my notes about my experiences in Poland upon my return. Take care.

    Reply
  4. I’m not familiar with Tom Cooper but I’ve been reading Stephen Green on Pjmedia. They seem very similar.

    Another I’ve recently become acquainted with is Larry Johnson and he reminds me of you. He’s also a Firearms Instructor.

    Reply
  5. Good info, I haven’t been following anti-Russian propaganda long enough to remember that one, though it is unsurprising. I just thought it was funny because I have seen them in real life, and it is so silly to think they are a personal army.

    Reply

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