Sun Tzu is an ancient Chinese military general and strategist.
In his book The Art of War, he mentioned 5 constant factors when it comes to planning.
Heaven refers to night and day,
cold and heat,
times and seasons.
Earth refers to terrain like open ground and narrow passes.
While Russia has been planning for the invasion of Ukraine, they failed to consider environmental
and terrain factors.
Besides anti-tank missiles and landmines,
Russian tanks also have to deal with the mud.
Rasputitsa is the Russian term for spring and autumn,
where travelling on unpaved roads become difficult due to muddy conditions
from rain or melting snow.
This has happened throughout history.
The Russian leadership could have chosen a better season to invade Ukraine
where tanks could operate effectively.
Based on the Soviet military doctrine Maskirovka,
Russia tried deceiving the world by saying that Russia has no plans to attack Ukraine.
Russia has also used deception in the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
However, over the years, Ukraine is slowly learning from their mistakes.
We have yet to see Russian forces performing sophisticated offensive maneuvers
using signal or electronic deception.
For instance, as a Russian commander, I would order the increase in volume of
communications and electronic transmissions
to make the Ukrainians think that I will attack city A.
In reality, I will attack city B instead.
The Russian leadership completely underestimated the Ukrainians' will to defend their country,
thinking that they would simply surrender.
Russia's leadership also does not know the state of its own military
such as poor equipment ranging from vehicles to communication systems.
Russian vehicles face a variety of problems due to poor maintenance and poorly-made tires.
Despite Russia having developed the Era secured communication system,
it cannot function because Russian forces had destroyed the 3G and 4G cell towers
in Ukraine.
This results to Russian forces having to use unencrypted communication
that are easily intercepted.
These intercepted communications allowed Ukrainian military intelligence to study Russian forces
and movements.
The Ukrainians are using guerrilla tactics,
ambushing isolated Russian forces and supply trucks
that are easy targets.
In response, the Russians tried using wood as protection for their supply trucks
but obviously, this would not be effective against high-explosive or anti-tank weapons.
Russian forces, on the other hand, are bombing civilian targets.
Both sides understood the importance of logistical supplies to win a war.
Hence, Russian supply trucks are priority targets for the Ukrainians.
Having lost many supply trucks, the Russians are responding by bringing in civilian vehicles
to resupply their forces.
Meanwhile, the Russian forces are also targeting Ukrainian food and ammunition depots.
The Russians deployed about 175-190,000 troops against more than 200,000 Ukrainians
and these are just active personnel.
Add in the reserve personnel, paramilitary and foreign volunteers, the Ukrainians would
have a much larger defending force.
This also does not include ordinary Ukrainians resisting the invasion.
The 3:1 rule is a well-known rule that suggests that an attacking force should be at least
3 times larger than the defending force to secure a victory.
This is because the defenders have advantages such as fortifications.
The Russian leadership also made a huge mistake by attacking everywhere simultaneously.
As a Russian commander, if I attack everywhere, I will lose all battles.
Therefore, I need to concentrate my forces on one front
to make winning easier with a larger attacking force.
From there, I can attack the next city.
Having capable soldiers,
high battlefield mobility
and sufficient logistical supplies are necessary factors for a successful offensive operation.
Sun Tzu describes 5 classes of spies.
The use of local spies refers to employing services from local inhabitants.
In the context of this war, Russia's 5th column refers to Russian sympathizers in Ukraine
gathered in secret that can mobilize to assist the Russian invasion by performing acts of
sabotage,
disinformation
or espionage.
The Ukrainians are highly aware of such threats in their country.
Thus far, we have not seen the success of Russia's 5th column in Ukraine.