Putin doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who gets shaken up easily,
but a tactic being used by the Ukrainian army seems to have caught him totally by surprise.
But what is this new tactic that some commenters have dubbed “thunder runs”? Did
Ukraine invent an entirely new style of warfare? Here’s why Ukraine’s new tactics are so effective,
and why the Russian army is no longer dreaming of victory, but how to survive.
After months of grinding warfare, in early September Ukrainian forces launched an
offensive operation in two places at once—one toward Kherson in the south,
the other directed at the Kharkiv Oblast in the northeast. The counterattack quickly
shattered the Russian perimeter around Kharkiv, liberating the city, its strategic rail hubs,
and dozens of adjacent villages that for months had been under Russian occupation.
This sudden advance surpassed even the most optimistic expectations.
When it started, few believed the operation could achieve more than small territorial gains;
but when it ended, Ukraine had not only inflicted a massive psychological blow against its enemy,
it had also liberated several thousand kilometers of territory, captured huge numbers of prisoners
and equipment, severed vital lines of support, and sent Russian forces fleeing in panic.
They were so desperate to escape, Ukrainian residents even reported cases of Russian
soldiers putting on civilian clothes and trying to flee on stolen bicycles.
Did this mark a turning point in the war? As the conflict drags on, it’s hard to say. But while
the counteroffensive’s broader impact remains unknown, few can doubt the tactical prowess
of Ukrainian forces that was on full display. So what made such incredible advances possible?
In order to understand the devastating tactics at the heart of Ukraine’s recent success, first we
need to look at the concept of Maneuver Warfare. Tactical mobility has been a pillar of effective
warfare for thousands of years. The concept of maneuver warfare relies on
a combination of initiative, deception, speed, and disruption to exploit enemy weaknesses. It
is basically the opposite of attritional warfare where one army tries to outlast
the other over a long period of time. Rather than solely focusing on engaging
and destroying enemy forces in the field, maneuver warfare seeks to isolate, strangle,
and sever the support structures that sustain them with a small number of decisive actions.
This often means avoiding forward strongpoints altogether, instead probing areas of weakness
and striking the enemy where they least expect it. These surprising breakthroughs sew chaos and
confusion, and can, under the right circumstances, erode the enemy’s will to fight altogether.
History is filled with examples of effective maneuver warfare. It’s perhaps best epitomized
in history by the highly mobile horsemen of the Eurasian steppes, Hannibal’s forces at Cannae,
and Napoleon’s legendary combinations of cavalry and fast-marching infantry who dominated European
armies with deception and speed, modern commanders continue to preach battlefield mobility as a
non-negotiable tenet of successful warfighting. Of course, the industrialization of warfare in
the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries changed everything. The introduction of trains,
trucks, and tanks to the battlefield made it possible for armies to achieve massive
breakthroughs by concentrating mobile mechanized formations at weak points along enemy lines.
Perhaps nothing has embodied this doctrinal evolution more than images of German panzers
rolling across the Low Countries in the early 1940s. The German blitzkrieg certainly embodied
maneuver warfare at its finest, incorporating innovative technologies and tactics to achieve
notable early successes during World War II. But while many have drawn parallels between
German blitzkrieg tactics and the recent offensive in Ukraine, the Ukrainians have
applied the concept of maneuver warfare on a far narrower scale; rather than closely coordinating
air and mechanized ground assets to destroy enemy forces on a broader operational level
like the German lightning war sought to achieve, the Ukrainians have employed what
some commentators have labeled “thunder runs” to shift the strategic initiative into their favor.
So what exactly is a thunder run? Sometimes called a “Light Strike,” “Reconnaissance in
Force,” or “Reconnaissance by Fire,” thunder runs call for high speed,
heavily armored military convoys to plunge deep into enemy territory, bypassing unimportant
cities and defensive strongpoints in a bid to get behind and destabilize the enemy’s rear.
Provoking fire, identifying vulnerabilities, moving on, and doubling back where necessary,
thunder runs create an illusion of overwhelming force that unleashes a debilitating psychological
impact on those who encounter them. When it works, the results are spectacular.
As lightweight armored vehicles—like civilian 4x4s, pickup trucks, and western-donated Humvees
in the case of Ukraine—sporadically engage the enemy, they direct onrushing infantry and armor
behind them to areas they can do the most damage. Using this tactic, Ukraine’s thunder run quickly
overwhelmed demoralized Russian defenders in the Kharkiv Oblast, isolating them from their parent
units in such a way as to render entire Russian formations “disorganized and combat ineffective.”
A thunder runs’ success hinges on a series of contingent, overlapping factors:
First, the weather must be good—at least good enough for off-road vehicles to travel quickly;
Second, there must be a promising window of opportunity—one in which the enemy suffers from
faulty intelligence, low morale, poor command and control, or exposed logistical lines;
Third, the onrushing forces must avoid overreach, meticulously planning each phase
of the advance while establishing safe and secure lines of support;
and fourth, they must achieve surprise, fulfilling Sun Tzu’s 5th century injunction
to bait your enemy “into predictable patterns of response, occupying their
minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment—that which they cannot anticipate.”
The recent Ukrainian offensive checked all the boxes. It occurred at the tail end of a long,
hot summer; it was preceded by a convincing deception campaign that drew many of Russia’s
most experienced units south, leaving the 1,000 kilometer Kharkiv front exposed and vulnerable;
for months, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, eviscerated Russian ammo
and supply depots, command posts, and other targets deep behind enemy lines,
causing Russian morale to plunge. On top of that, Ukrainian logistics were sound, their intelligence
was accurate, and their armor and infantry were well-drilled and prepared to operate in harmony.
It was the perfect storm—one the Ukrainians exploited magnificently.
The sheer speed of Ukraine’s advance generated new opportunities, including the liberation of
strategic transport hubs at Kupiansk and Izyum and the shifting of the strategic initiative
into Ukrainian hands for the first time, capping what is undeniably the most significant Ukrainian
victory since the Battle of Kyiv back in April—and arguably the worst Russian
defeat since the bloody days of World War II. But the offensive was far from the only case
where daring mechanized thrusts deep into enemy territory yielded incredible results.
During World War II, small groups of plucky special operators drawn from the corners of
the British empire formed the core of the Long Range Desert Group or LRDG, a unit whose actions
prefigured the modern thunder run with their focus on strategic reconnaissance, infiltration,
raiding, and sabotage behind enemy lines. Commandeering specially equipped light trucks
and jeeps, the LRDG plied their trade in the vast desert sands of North Africa. They spent
long days patrolling, probing, and penetrating enemy positions. Stripping heavy windscreens,
doors, and hoods to save weight, desert operators outfitted their vehicles with a bristling array
of machine guns, cannons, grenades, and explosives for any conceivable situation.
They exuded individuality and initiative. Most would have felt right at home with modern
Ukrainian soldiers, firing RPGs from the back of haphazardly armored Toyota 4x4s lurching forward
in great bounds towards the Russian frontier. There are many other historical parallels from
World War II—none more apt than Patton’s armored breakthroughs in France and Germany
that were only limited by their inability to keep vehicles fueled—a powerful reminder of the
importance of logistics, munitions, fuel, and food to sustain such rapid advances.
Fast forwarding a few decades, it was in the Vietnam War where the term “thunder
run” actually originated. There, American mechanized units devised an ingenious way
to bypass pesky minefields, ironically, by assigning heavily armored M48 Patton tanks
to plow forward and simply trigger the mines, rather than spend time and energy clearing
them individually. Though the thunder run’s mine-clearing tactic was inherently dangerous,
it prevented operations from bogging down and creating the conditions for a deadly ambush.
It was only two decades ago during the American invasion of Iraq when the term evolved to
encompass the raid-like qualities we now associate it with. Employed in Iraq to devastating effect,
the high-speed American convoy attack into the heart of Baghdad in the spring
of 2003 serves as the most obvious point of reference to the recent Ukrainian offensive.
When the American military embarked on Operation Iraqi Freedom, they knew toppling Saddam Hussein’s
regime in Baghdad would pose serious challenges. Operating in a highly urbanized environment,
military planners sought to apply the lessons of Operation Desert Storm, hoping speed, surprise,
shock, and awe might paralyze Iraqi defenders and prevent widespread damage to local infrastructure,
thus eliminating the possibility for operations to devolve into a costly,
street-by-street affair in a city of five million inhabitants.
This choice was, in part, conditioned by recent developments. Just a decade earlier,
an ill-fated attempt to rescue the survivors of two Blackhawk crashes in the crowded streets
of urban Mogadishu resulted in the tragic losses of dozens of American servicemen,
and an intense public backlash increased the military’s wariness of such urban operations.
Two years later during the First Chechen War in 1995, Russian armored forces launched an
all-out assault on Grozny. The Chechens aggressively resisted, and the outcome
was disastrous for the Russians. One Russian motorized brigade lost three quarters of its
main battle tanks and 85% of its armored vehicles. It was a botched thunder run if ever one existed,
one that seemed to confirm lessons learned the hard way by the Blackhawk crew in Somalia.
American military planners hoped to avoid a similar outcome in Iraq. Equipping a column
of M1A1 Abrams Tanks and fast-moving M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles,
elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division charged headlong into Baghdad, blasting
their way through improvised enemy defenses on the way to Saddam’s palace. The maneuver
created the conditions for a legendary tactical victory and the subsequent fall of Baghdad owed
much to the boldness of subsequent thunder runs. But tactical genius doesn't always translate into
overall strategic success. The bitter insurgency that emerged in the wake of the 2003 invasion
serves as a reminder that military campaigns often have a way of defying expectations—something the
Ukrainians will bear in mind as they consolidate their gains and plan future offensives.
While it’s tempting to argue that Ukraine should continue staging thunder runs to
exploit their newfound gains, self-awareness and moderation are key. More often than not,
ill-planned thunder runs can go terribly awry. None know this better than the Russians
themselves, who followed up their catastrophic failure in Grozny by mounting an uncoordinated
armored blitz on Kyiv earlier this year that quickly morphed into an untenable operational
situation and an unmitigated strategic disaster. Benefiting from intelligence gained from captured
prisoners, tactical flexibility earned by salvaging and repurposing hundreds of captured
Russian vehicles, and increased firepower from vast stores of captured ammunition,
Ukrainian forces will continue to reap the rewards of their daring operation. Whether
it indeed was the turning point many have longed for, we’ll just have to wait and see.