Russia relying on infantry-led frontal assaults due to equipment losses - ISW

This is said in a report by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukrinform reports.

On November 11, one milblogger emphasized that the Russian practice of conducting tactical assaults intended to storm Ukrainian fortified positions in forest areas of Donbas will not translate into a wider operational breakthrough anywhere on the front. The milblogger noted that there is no way to train enough Russian personnel for the intensive frontal assaults required for significant advances.

Another milblogger claimed that the Russian military is about to experience a "real renaissance of infantry combat" because there are fewer tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), and armored personnel carriers (APCs) close to the frontline.

At the same time, a critical milblogger responded to the "infantry renaissance" comment and remarked that the comment is a negative reflection of Russian equipment losses and poor frontline coordination that has created a reliance on assault tactics

“ISW has previously observed that Russian forces are increasingly relying on such infantry-led frontal assaults, likely to compensate for a lack of adequately trained personnel and due to widespread equipment losses,” ISW experts noted.

Analysts at the ISW also stressed that the Russian General Staff appears to be relying heavily on frontal assaults as the predominant tactic in Ukraine as an important part of the Russian solution to the problems of "military parity" laid out by Zaluzhnyi's essay on the issue of "positional warfare."

As reported by Ukrinform, analysts at the ISW believe that an essay by Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi, “Modern Positional Warfare and How to Win It”, outlines his consideration of the changes Ukraine must make to overcome the current ‘positional’ stage of the war more clearly than the shorter op-ed and the Economist article it accompanied.