Comments by "Stephen Sipe" (@stephensipe5405) on "How Ukraine Defeated a Major Russian Assault: Tactical Analysis of the Battle of Kupiansk" video.

  1. Chuck, your analysis of Russian Offensive failure near Kupiansk was BOT. However, you missed 1 huge Russian flaw which Ukrainian Military Command mimics in Offensive Operations. The NATO Battle Planning Process leading to a standard 5 Paragraph OPORD is an EVERY Command Level necessity from Battalion Level up. The OPORD might come from a higher Command Level down, but each subordinate Command Level down to Battalion has to have to plan their own OPORD based on the higher Command Level slice instructions. For example, in your analysis, it appeared the Russian Offensive Operation was 2 Brigades, which is a weak Division Command Level unless a trailing Brigade was in Reserve. Each Brigade should have a Scout screening Unit OR the lead Battalion should deploy a Company on a 2-4 roadway path to determine the contact line, minefields, or natural obstacles. The lead Battalion should not be in a column. However, the trailing Battalions can move in a column until contact is made, the deploy. It is obvious this Offensive was planned off a map. The scale might have been lacking detail. A Division Recon/ACR or Drone Unit should have IDed the natural terrain obstacles. If this detail was added to the maps used, and then wargamed, the outcome would have been forecasted. Russians seem to lack a systematic Battle Planning Process, they lack any planning at every Command Level, and then execution is every Unit for themselves. Unfortunately, Ukrainian Military Command suffers from these same issues. For example, the initial Kursk Offensive was well planned. It totally caught Russians by surprise, again! However, Ukrainians lacked very clear, specific Objectives. The Ukrainians could have run a Stryker Unit north to threaten the nuclear power plant near Kursk City. This was ALWAYS too far to be an Objective without a Corps of 3 Divisions, 4 Brigades each. So what was the main Objective or Objectives? Capturing Sudzha was Objective 1. The Objective 2 should have been to secure the Seym River from Tyotkino to Korenovo. This required 2 Brigades attacking from different points of the Ukrainian border to surround Glushkovo from the west and south. Korenovo needed 2 Brigades additional. All of these Units should have been already on the border. Ukrainians needed an additional Brigade to capture Guyevo and secure the river to Sudzha. Once SECURED, Ukrainians could have dug in and redeployed Units north to form a defense line along waterways from Korenovo to Sheptukhova to Progrebki to Sudzha. Minus the lakes, this is about 25 miles of trench lines, minefields, barbed wire. The actual Ukrainian border is about 150 miles with few natural defenses. This means trading land was NOT an Objective. Creating a defendable border has always been the Objective. Waterway networks are the best borders with Russia. Trading Luhansk Oblast north of the Donetsk River for all the territory south of the Donetsk River, including Rostov and Taganrog, would be defendable. If Crimea was lost, but Kherson Oblast East liberated, dig a canal from the Azov Sea to the Black Sea at Krasnopekopsk. Ukrainians have to rebuild all bridges across the Dnipro River as draw bridges rising to the west. This is Ukraine’s best defense other than becoming a NATO Member. PS: I am a Brigade MI Officer, previously trained as an Armor Officer.
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