The war in Ukraine has stalled into a brutal grind, a kind of slow-motion slaughter. Drones buzz constantly overhead, defenses are deep, and the front lines barely move as the death toll climbs.
This deadlock, however, has created new opportunities for Ukraine’s elite soldiers to stir up trouble behind the lines, an American instructor with the 4th Ranger Regiment of Kyiv’s Special Operations Forces told Business Insider.
The American, who could be identified only by his call sign, Scooter, for security reasons, said that in this situation, Ukraine’s special operators are increasingly being trained on how “to get through the enemy line and go cause mischief.”
Speaking to BI via video chat from an undisclosed location in central Ukraine, Scooter said that the Ukrainian soldiers are being encouraged to “go ambush logistics personnel, go destroy equipment, go steal something expensive. Go behind the enemy line, do something to them that’s going to help us and hurt them, and then come back.”
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the early stages of the conflict featured a style of maneuver warfare, with rolling gun battles in the cities, tank columns pushing forward, mechanized infantry assaults, and armored vehicles fighting in open fields.
The conflict, however, eventually transitioned to a war of attrition, with a largely static front line sprawling for hundreds of miles. Russia and Ukraine have launched occasional offensives and large assaults, but significant breakthroughs have been few and far between.
Scooter said in 2022, Ukrainian special operators were sent on missions such as ambushing a convoy of Russian ammunition trucks, blowing up tanks, or attacking a command post. But “now, just due to the nature of the war, the way the situation has changed, often, you’re not getting missions like that.”
Scooter explained that small teams of special operators are taught to sneak just a few kilometers across enemy lines and “go cause problems” for the Russians. The rule is: “don’t get caught.”
This isn’t about clearing out a trench system, killing everyone inside, and taking a position. “You’re going over there to make sure he’s hungry — make sure he doesn’t have ammo,” Scooter said. “Make sure his ride, when it’s his turn to rotate off position, doesn’t show up. Go place land mines. Go sabotage equipment. Take prisoners.”
‘We’re training them for an attrition war’
Ukraine’s special operators have been doing these types of sabotage missions since the full-scale war started, Scooter said. The difference is that they are more of a focus now than they were before.
Such missions have only become more challenging, though, amid the proliferation of drones flying over the battlefield. Scooter said the sky is filled with “flying security cameras.”
The 4th Ranger Regiment is taught to sneak past Russian patrols and even learn basic Russian phrases. They’re trained to be quick, because it’s dangerous to hang around the enemy’s first line — where troops are most alert — for too long.
Soldiers also receive personal combative training — practical, real-world fighting techniques — in case they find themselves in a close-quarters fight that requires hand-to-hand combat.
Scooter said the effects of the sabotage missions are felt at a tactical level. The Ukrainian infantrymen, or foot soldiers, are tasked with killing the Russians at the front — special operators are dealing with what’s going on behind the front lines. It’s one way that the Ukrainians have adapted to the changing nature of the grinding war.
“We’re not focusing as much on maneuver warfare tactics. We’re training them for an attrition war,” Scooter said. “You hear this all the time: World War I — with drones. We’re training them for a static war of attrition with lines that very seldom move in any significant manner.”
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