RUSI Report: Russia to Emerge from Ukraine Conflict with Enhanced Precision Strike Capabilities

LONDON, September 8. /TASS/. Russia will be in a much stronger military position following the special military operation in Ukraine than it was before, in terms of its possession of high-precision weapons capable of striking enemy targets, says a report by the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security (RUSI), obtained by TASS.

The report, authored by RUSI Senior Research Fellow Sidharth Kaushal and Sam Cranny-Evans, an Associate Fellow at RUSI, editor-in-chief of the online military technology publication Calibre Defense, notes that during the conflict, the Russian Armed Forces supplemented their customary tactics of suppressing the enemy with massive artillery fire by making more extensive use of precision-guided weapons. "Since 2022, the war has led Russia to significantly expand its precision strike capabilities in terms of quantity, quality, scale and integration," the report states.

"At the tactical level, Russia retains the ability to conduct massed artillery fires. Precision targeting, drones and reconnaissance-strike complexes have not replaced artillery but rather complement Russia’s enduring preference for overwhelming firepower along key axes of advance," the experts noted.

"Russian forces have also developed a substantial cadre of reconnaissance personnel with extensive experience locating small, mobile targets under combat conditions. If this expertise is retained after the war, it likely that Russia will enter future conflicts in a far stronger position than it had in 2022," the report emphasizes.

Doctrinal changes

The authors also noted that "in parallel, the distinction between reconnaissance-fire and reconnaissance-strike complexes has increasingly blurred. Precision strike capabilities are now routinely employed for counter-battery missions and attritional strikes." At the same time, "drones operate as part of an integrated system that also includes guided missiles and glide bombs. The shift from the massive use of munitions to the use of precision-guided weapons may be more significant than the specific types of systems deployed in the conflict in Ukraine," the experts added.

Kaushal and Cranny-Evans noted that "the operational and doctrinal adaptations observed during the conflict in Ukraine--such as a reinforced single chain of command, streamlined target acquisition, and the integration of low-cost and high-tech strike systems--will define future Russian military operations."

"Russia has shifted from relying on mass firepower to mass precision strikes. In turn, these adaptations are likely to shape future Russian doctrine and force structure, producing forces that are more lethal and effective at targeting adversaries once ISTAR superiority is established," the report states.

At the same time, the experts state, "This evolution should not, however, be conflated with UAVs alone: this paper’s central argument is that UAVs are one component of an evolving precision strike complex, alongside more accurate artillery and air-launched standoff munitions. Russia’s methods of employing certain capabilities will probably prove more enduring than the munitions themselves," the experts concluded.