Images multiply across networks. Tanks, armored vehicles and military vehicles of Vladimir Putin’s invading forces disabled or destroyed on Ukrainian roads are one of the most powerful propaganda weapons for Kiev’s morale in the war.
Ironically, the Russian losses stem from a tactic of employing portable anti-tank missiles devised by Moscow in the Cold War, which by now are so well known that they would require more effective preventive action.
A good part of the successes is attributed to the intensive use of these weapons, mainly the American Javelin missile launcher and the Swedish-British NLAW model. Although there are no precise numbers released, they are part of the batch of 20,000 rockets that NATO (the western military alliance) said it has delivered so far to the Ukrainians, including portable anti-aircraft models.
The Javelin (javelin, in English) is the most feared model, for its greater firepower. It can hit targets, on average, up to 2.5 km in a direct trajectory or, to the terror of the armored ones, in a curve up to 150 meters high followed by a descending: armored vehicles are generally more fragile on the roof. That’s why there are images of Russian T-72 tanks with steel cages over their turrets.
It can be fired by a single man, although there is usually a second helping to load the equipment. Each missile costs US$ 175,000 (R$ 880,000).
Its employment doctrine dates back to the 1960s, when the Soviet Union created the first portable model for use against armored vehicles and tanks, the 9M14 Maliutka (small, in Russian), known in the West as the AT-3 Sagger.
It was seen in action in the early 1970s in the Vietnam War, but its loudest debut was in the Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel by surprise in 1973. Israeli armored forces suffered brutally from the mobility of the attacks — and, at that time, technology still forced the shooter to guide the missile with thin cables to its target, while today the infrared sight allows you to shoot and run away.
Lesson learned, Israel only exposed its armored forces in environments with this type of adversary after doing an artillery sweep first, killing potential attackers.
This was embodied in NATO combat doctrine, which feared being overwhelmed by the Soviet armored force in the event of an invasion of Western Europe. The US didn’t have a truly portable anti-tank missile launcher until 1975, and the Javelin is its most recent incarnation, from 1996.
Now, Putin’s generals appear to be using the same tactics as the Israelis before they learned their lesson, moving armored columns into Ukraine in ways that surprise military analysts. The image of a convoy being hit by crossfire on Wednesday (9) on a wide avenue in Brovari, near Kiev, is an example of this.
The fact that the 64km-long mega-train northeast of Kiev has dispersed, according to reports that emerged on Friday, suggests tactics may be adapting in the field.
There are also other modern elements that the Russians seem to have underestimated, such as the Ukrainians’ use of attack drones. The main model used by Kiev is the Turkish Bayraktar-TB2, which was already the subject of attention in the Russian military expert community due to its success against Armenian tanks and armor when it was employed by Azerbaijan in the war it won in 2020.
The Russians also have a few drones, but not in large numbers, and they have been restrained in the use of their tactical aviation so far. Its fighter jets and attack planes have only started to be seen more this week, and there is some dark speculation that they may be being spared in the event of the war spreading to NATO countries.
An alternative explanation for Russian behavior is that, numerically superior, they simply believe they will crush the resistance, despite the constant flow of weapons coming across the Polish-Ukrainian border.
In this sense, Putin would be fighting in a very conventional way, which has also caused a certain astonishment at the casualties they have presented – naturally, due to the intense Western propaganda in favor of Kiev, there are far fewer reports and images of the damage inflicted on the Ukrainians, which are quite considerable given the information available.
In this way, and even because the available numbers of Javelin and NLAW (new generation light anti-tank weapon) are not infinite, it is possible that brute force prevails.
There are combat philosophy considerations as well. “I don’t think Putin can imagine a war in which the spearhead is other than the tank. Apparently no one told him that things have changed,” wrote George Friedman, one of America’s top strategic analysts.
“He’s fighting the war the way our generation always expected, with hundreds of tanks advancing into combat. It’s like using cavalry to win World War I. Nostalgia can be dangerous.”
