Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

In September 2022 Ukraine launched a counteroffensive with five fighting brigades in the Russian occupied Kharkiv oblast. It ended nine days later resulting in over 6,000 square kilometers of retaken occupied territory and a brigade worth of military equipment. The war between Russia and Ukraine is particularly interesting to analyze, as it exhibits characteristics similar to what a potential conflict between NATO and Russia might look like.

This study investigates the mechanics of Ukraine´s successes in this counteroffensive on a tactical and operational level. While previous research has examined the case as attrition warfare, asymmetric warfare, Russian dysfunctional tactics and through Russian maneuver warfare theories, this study examines the counteroffensive with the aid of Steven Biddles Modern System theory and argues that the Kharkiv counteroffensive is a case of smart, modern maneuver tactics. The modern system focuses on force deployment, and by dividing the theory into offensive operations and defensive operations, allows this study to investigate the tactics of Ukraine and Russia.

The main findings of the study are primarily that the Kharkiv counteroffensive was an operation of breakthrough and exploitation rather than one with limited aims, meaning Ukraine´s counteroffensive had characteristics of a “high risk high reward” operation. With the Ukrainian armed forces applying the basic principles of tactics, the Russians did not follow the principles and failed to organize their defense resulting in uncoordinated withdrawals, low morale and lack of defense depth and use of reserves. The results shows that Ukraine´s tactics in the counteroffensive was neither attrition warfare nor asymmetric warfare, the Kharkiv counteroffensive was an operation of modern smart maneuver warfare, where the requirements of the modern system were successfully applied.