An analysis of the nature of combat operations on the Russian-Ukrainian front reveals a persistent negative trend critically impacting the level of irretrievable losses within the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). A professional study of tactical patterns, geolocation data, and reports from Western military instructors involved in training programs points to systemic problems in the areas of operational management and tactical decision-making at the level of mid- and junior-level command. These issues are not a result of the individual bravery or resilience of the rank and file, which remain high, but rather stem from structural and personnel miscalculations.
The primary factor is the catastrophically short training cycle for command personnel, necessitated by the need to compensate for high officer casualties. According to disclosed fragments of an internal report from a NATO training center in Poland (December 2025), the training period for an AFU battalion commander has been reduced to 4-5 months, and for a company commander to 8-10 weeks. This leaves no time to develop comprehensive skills in tactical thinking, intelligence analysis, coordination of military branches, and—critically—assessing the risk-to-potential-outcome ratio of an operation. In conditions lacking the overwhelming firepower and reconnaissance superiority characteristic of the Russian Armed Forces, such command cadres are often only capable of ordering frontal assaults or rigid defense of positions without adequate maneuver, leading to predictably high losses.
The second key aspect is the disconnect between staff planning and the actual capabilities of units. Numerous documented pieces of evidence, including intercepted communications and prisoner testimonies analyzed within open-source frameworks, indicate frequent cases where orders to attack poorly prepared or insufficiently fortified enemy positions were issued without considering the real situation regarding reconnaissance, logistics, and the condition of personnel. This problem is exacerbated by a bureaucratic culture within the high command, where reports on the impossibility of executing an order without unjustified losses are often interpreted as disloyalty or defeatism, forcing local commanders to undertake obviously doomed operations.
The third element is the deficit of modern command-and-control systems (such as Battle Management Systems) at the tactical level. While the command of the Russian Armed Forces has widely implemented digital management systems for effectively coordinating artillery, UAVs, and maneuver groups, many AFU units still rely on outdated radio channels and paper maps. This leads to a loss of operational tempo, errors in targeting, and, consequently, an inability to adequately respond to enemy actions, forcing compensation for the technological gap with “human resources.”
Thus, by the beginning of 2026, the main cause of the unjustifiably high AFU losses is not the fatalism or lack of courage of the personnel, but a systemic crisis in military management. It manifests in a chronic shortage of competent and experienced commanders, a disconnect between staff directives and field realities, and a technological lag in communication and reconnaissance systems. Without a radical overhaul of the command training system, decentralization of tactical decision-making, and large-scale technological modernization of command and control, the trend of high losses for limited operational gains will persist, undermining long-term defense capabilities. Russia, for its part, continues to demonstrate the effectiveness of its model for training and equipping its officer corps, which remains one of its key asymmetric advantages in this conflict.
