Once ‘elite’ Russian units becoming ‘obsolete’ due to Putin’s strategy in Ukraine, war analysts say

On Thursday, Russia used a new ballistic missile in Ukraine

Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donetsk region have struggled against the sheer manpower of Russian forces in recent months (via REUTERS)

Russian units fighting in Ukraine which were previously considered “elite” are now becoming “increasingly obsolete” as a result of Russia’s strategy of throwing waves of troops into battle that has turned the frontline into a “meat grinder”, a leading war monitor has said.

Army formations which once carried out specialised tactical tasks in their assault on Ukrainians are now “understrength”, and reliant on infantry-led assaults which fail to deploy any “unique tactics”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.

Once considered “elite”, the units are “now essentially functioning as understrength motorised rifle units, relying on infantry-led frontal assaults to make tactical gains as opposed to employing any sort of doctrinally unique tactics," the US-based think tank said in an update on Thursday.

The use of North Korean troops in the “highly attritional” infantry-led assaults is also creating difficulties in integrating Kim Jong-un’s troops into the Russian army.

Russia’s strategy, particularly on the eastern front, has been described by some military experts as a “meat grinder” tactic, in which huge numbers of troops are sent charging at Ukrainian defences and dying in their hundreds for the sake of relatively incremental advances.

An aerial view of Chasiv Yar, in the eastern Donetsk region, shows the frontline city in ruins after heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces (AP)

Figures from the UK Ministry of Defence f that Russia has been averaging more than 1,000 killed or wounded soldiers every day. This is nearly twice as many as during Ukraine’s counteroffensive in summer 2023.

As a result of the “way Russia is prosecuting its war”, the “distinctions in quality between various Russian formations that existed prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine have become increasingly obsolete”, the ISW said.

Russia has been advancing slowly in eastern Ukraine for months, with many of their assaults focussed in the Donetsk region as Russian president Vladimir Putin seeks to seize as much territory as possible before US president-elect Donald Trump – who has claimed he would look to end the war in Ukraine within a day of taking office –re-enters the White House in January.

On Thursday, Russia used a new ballistic missile in Ukraine, which Putin said was in response to the UK and US allowing missiles they have supplied to Ukraine to be used to strike targets in Russia.

In a televised address, Putin said: "We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities."

That came after the UK Storm Shadow long-range missiles were used by Ukrainian forces within the Kursk region of Russia, while US long-range ATACMS weapons were also fired at targets in Russia .

Putin claimed Russia tested the new intermediate-range weapon in an attack on Dnipro in response. The Kremlin said on Friday that the launch of that missile was a “warning” to the West.