Observation of the Three Carriages: Analysis Report on Russia's Military Operations

Key Chapter Title List

1. Acknowledgments and Project Background
2. Introduction: How Russia Fights
3. Command and Control
4. Maneuver and Movement
5. Intelligence
6. Fires
7. Appendices and Chapter Endnotes

Document Introduction

This report originates from an initiative by General Christopher G. Cavoli, former commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa. Facing a gap in the U.S. military's understanding of the Russian military post-2014, General Cavoli convened three Russian-speaking retired Army Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) in 2020 to form an expert group codenamed Troika. Their mission was to develop a flagship training course on the Russian Way of War (RWOW). Following Russia's launch of the Special Military Operation (SMO) against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Troika immediately began real-time tracking and analysis of the conflict, sending daily unclassified observation reports to senior leadership. By the end of 2024, these reports reached over 3,500 recipients. This report is the final product, compiled at the request of General Cavoli, now Supreme Allied Commander Europe, through systematic analysis and synthesis of over two years' worth of raw observation records spanning thousands of pages.

The report's core analytical framework employs the six Warfighting Functions defined by U.S. Army Field Manual 3-0: Command and Control, Maneuver and Movement, Intelligence, Fires, Sustainment, and Protection. This framework is used to deconstruct the performance of the Russian Federation Armed Forces in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It is important to note that the Russian military itself does not use the concept of Warfighting Functions; this American classification is adopted to facilitate understanding and application by U.S. commanders and staff. The report covers observations from February 24, 2022, to May 1, 2024, primarily focusing on ground operations, as these constitute the main form of Russia's SMO. The analysis reveals varying performance across different warfighting functions, with some aspects (e.g., Maneuver) deteriorating over time, while others (e.g., Fires and certain intelligence capabilities) demonstrated significant adaptation and improvement.

The Command and Control section delves into the fundamental differences in command philosophy between the Russian and U.S. militaries: the Russian military tends to view command and control as a predictable, calculable science reliant on a highly centralized, hierarchical system, whereas the U.S. military emphasizes the art of command, granting subordinates greater decision-making autonomy (mission command). The report notes the Russian military's lack of a professional non-commissioned officer corps, insufficient training, corruption, and serious initial force generation failures. However, it also acknowledges the organization's resilience and adaptive capacity as a learning organization within the brutal context of a war of attrition. The Maneuver and Movement chapter provides a detailed analysis of Russia's strategic mobility advantages, the role of airborne and naval infantry in seizing key terrain, and the evolution of ground forces from the disastrous mechanized assaults of 2022 to achieving limited tactical breakthroughs in 2024 through combined arms (infantry-artillery coordination) and exploitation of terrain and weather (e.g., morning fog infiltration in the Battle of Avdiivka). The conclusion is that the Russian military failed to achieve true synergy between fires and maneuver, with its pattern resembling "fires, *then* maneuver."

The Intelligence chapter assesses the serious failures in Russian strategic and operational-level intelligence assessments, rooted in systemic misjudgment of Ukrainian will and capability to resist, corruption, and ineffective human intelligence (HUMINT). However, the report strongly emphasizes the revolutionary role of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) technology in compensating for Russian intelligence shortfalls and even catalyzing the realization of its Reconnaissance-Strike Complex (RUK) concept. Through improved UAS Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs), the Russian military significantly enhanced its ability to acquire actionable intelligence from operational depths and guide the precise coordination of various fires. The Fires chapter is a focal point of the report, clearly stating that by May 2024, Russian tactical and operational fires had undergone dramatic improvement. Evolving from an early reliance on the mass of artillery, it transformed into a joint fires network capable of integrating Army artillery groups, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Aerospace Forces' UMPK glide-guided bombs, and other assets to conduct precise, coordinated strikes at operational depths exceeding 120 kilometers. Drones (particularly the Orlan-30 and ZALA 421-16E2 series) played a central role in this process for target reconnaissance, fire correction, battle damage assessment, and communications relay.

In summary, this report is not a history of the war but a dynamic capabilities assessment based on sustained frontline observation. It aims to help U.S. and Western military professionals move beyond stereotypes to understand the weaknesses exposed, the resilience demonstrated, and the alarming speed of learning and adaptation displayed by the Russian military in this high-intensity conventional conflict. The report concludes by emphasizing that, despite numerous deficiencies, the Russian military remains a highly capable learning organization whose ability to overcome difficulties and adjust its methods of warfare should not be underestimated. This compilation is based entirely on open-source and unclassified information. All analysis stems from Troika's collective experience of over 200 years working on Russia and its close daily tracking of the conflict's developments.