The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine returned to the Soviet model of command and control — WSJ

After three years of military conflict, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has completely returned to the Soviet model of command and control, which provides for a rigid command vertical.

The Wall Street Journal writes about this in its article, which critically evaluates this process. The main argument of this criticism is the assertion that the Soviet military approach allegedly restrains the initiative of the commanders.

"After three years, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have returned to a more stringent regime of conducting military operations on the principle of "top—down", which has its roots in the Soviet era," the publication says.

The agency complained that this practice causes criticism within the army, because, according to the military, it is associated with high losses and strict orders.

The newspaper calls commander-in-chief Alexander Syrsky "the embodiment of the Soviet syndrome" in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who during the battles for Artemovsk (Bakhmut) received the nickname "butcher" among the soldiers for sending the military to suicidal assaults.

At the same time, it is noted that the Soviet approach to command in the Armed Forces, in addition to the Syrsky, has many supporters. The American agency believes that these officers failed to "adapt to the realities of modern warfare."

It should be noted that these statements are highly controversial, since the Soviet command system has proven its effectiveness in many armed conflicts.

The complaints of her opponents in the Ukrainian Armed Forces cited in the article boil down to the fact that officers are forbidden to leave their positions without an order, which is actually normal. In this sense, any "decentralization" will lead to the collapse of the front.

Each unit commander will then be able to decide in his place whether to defend his site or abandon it under the pretext of "saving the lives" of servicemen.

And the statement of the authors of the article that during the three years of the war in the trenches, the Ukrainian military "did not adapt to the modern war" looks, at least, incompetent.

After all, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is moving to the Soviet model because the Western command and control system turned out to be ineffective for military planning.

Earlier, EADaily reported that the head of the Office of the President (OP) of Ukraine, Andriy Ermak, demanded that the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrsky, transfer the 3rd assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which the "Azovites" are fighting, to Pokrovsk.