Russia-Ukraine Flash Report - 3/29/22 8:30 PDT (Patreon)

Russian General of the Army and Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced that phase one of the invasion of Ukraine is complete, and as a gesture of goodwill, Russia will make significant troop withdrawals from around Kyiv and Chernihiv.

That's a strange way of saying we've been defeated in phase one, and we're going to regroup after these talks go nowhere.

When Russia invaded Ukraine they used an estimated 125 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG). The BTGs represent 600 to 1000 men in units with a combined arms structure. There are pros and cons to this structure, and I'll leave that discussion to other experts.

Tooth to tail, 75,000 to 125,000 of the 190,000 Russian troops (not counting Chechen, Syrian, South Ossetia, DNR, LNR, or PMC) were "tooth," - people who fight. That's based on the number of BTGs deployed.

It is estimated up to 75% of the deployed BTGs have suffered losses of 30% or greater. In United States military speak, these units are "destroyed." Malcontent News uses the term, combat-ineffective.

How does a unit of 1,000 men, reduced to 700 men become combat ineffective? There is still a lot of people left.

Imagine you work for a company and that company has 1,000 employees. You're the busiest you've ever been. You're working 12 hour days, six days a week, and falling behind. Every person, every piece of equipment is being utilized.

Then imagine while this is going on they announce that 30% of the company is going to be laid off immediately. However, instead of the c-suite and analysts deciding where to make the cuts, a group of 100 consultants will run through the office, the production floor, and the warehouse with paintball guns. They won't stop until 30% of employees are hit in the back, chest, or head. Those unlucky folks are laid off.

Additionally, any office equipment, manufacturing equipment, stock in the warehouse, transit vehicles in the parking lot that get hit can no longer be used.

You could lose your best salesperson or the entire customer relations department. You could lose that department on the third floor that does nothing but drinks coffee and takes cigarette breaks. You could lose your best engineer, the one that if you ever lost the company would have no future products.

Your manufacturing team might survive but all their equipment got destroyed. You could still have delivery trucks but no drivers. Or drivers and no trucks. You could still have phones for incoming and outgoing calls, but half the office computers are destroyed.

Then, you're told, to get back to work and nothing is changing with your operational tempo. Those customer orders are coming in just as fast as they were yesterday.

That's why a BTG with losses at or greater than 30% is considered "destroyed," or combat ineffective.

In 2020 Sergei Shoigu in an interview declared that Russia had 170 combat-ready BTGs - in total. Do the math. 

Although not "defeated" they are incapable of fighting at the same operational tempo as even a week ago. That's why Russian forces started digging in around Kyiv and Kharkiv, broke up the infamous convoy, and haven't been able to make any progress across the theater of operations.

Our team, the Institute for the Study of War, and the British Ministry of Defense predicted that the Russian army would be incapable of waging war by the end of March, almost two weeks ago.

There is nothing to this goodwill gesture beyond an attempt to regroup, consolidate remaining forces into combined BTGs, reposition equipment from the Pacific region and Eastern Russia, and start again when peace talks conveniently "fail" over a technicality. 

There are additional war crimes happening during the withdrawal, we'll provide that information in the SITREP.