He has a column on why the Russian army may not be all that and a bag of chips.
Ukraine update: What is an 'NCO,' and why does Russia's lack of them cause them so much trouble
Russia’s army doesn’t have anything like that. There are officers, and then there are one-year conscripts. There is no institutional knowledge that can guide the new guys and make sure that orders are carried out efficiently. If you wonder why Russia can f--- up an ambush to the point where it costs them massive loss of life, it’s because they don’t have sergeants to drill scenarios like “turning into an ambush,” and their one-year service is certainly not enough to learn those lessons during their training. Only 1% of conscripts reenlist. Russia has contract soldiers—those who reenlist—but “Russia does not want well-rounded enlisted leaders, they want narrowly-focused, technically competent, professional, enlisted soldiers. Due to this very different system, Russian contract servicemen are probably more accurately described as ‘enlisted professionals’ than ‘noncommissioned officers.’” In other words, these are the guys manning complex weapons systems like anti-aircraft missiles. They're not in leadership roles.
Instead, “As soon as a new lieutenant graduates from an academy and takes command of their platoon, they are expected to immediately begin training and maintaining discipline [filling] the leadership, planning, training, and disciplinary roles of both a U.S. platoon leader and platoon sergeant.” But of course, instead of being trained by a soldier with 15 years of experience, you’re being trained by the guy fresh out of an academy where his training is likely theoretical and not practical. The end result is nonsense like this. Compare to this U.S. Army training led by NCOs.
And that suits Russians fine! They don’t want battlefield initiative and independence. They want soldiers who follow orders, no matter how ridiculous or stupid they may seem That’s why they kept dropping paratroopers behind enemy lines on those first few days of the war: Someone had orders to take airfields that moment, and so they kept doing the thing that didn’t work over and over again. Hundreds died? Russian leaders don’t care.
But this does mean that instead of sitting in those tents and the command center making the big tactical decisions, Russian officers have to drag themselves to the front lines to make sure their orders are being carried out. Because as we’ve seen, Russia’s army is one big clusterf---. And that’s why you see so many generals and colonels die. According to one European diplomat, “They're struggling on the front line to get their orders through. They're having to go to the front line to make things happen, which is putting them at much greater risk than you would normally see."
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