Analysis for Operational and Industrial Purposes

At the International Armoured Vehicles event in Twickenham this week, a senior official of the British MoD revealed that the UK has recovered Russian military equipment captured by Ukrainian forces over the last eleven months of the Russian invasion. The equipment has been used for analysis by national intelligence agencies and for investigation by industry, seeking to identify vulnerabilities and develop appropriate countermeasures.

The official confirmed that this was part of the UK’s continuing and much more broadly-based support for Ukraine, encompassing significant aid in the form of equipment, training some 11,000 Ukrainian troops during 2022 (with a similar number anticipated for 2023, according to a subsequent speaker), and ‘soft’ assistance including information operations and intelligence-sharing.

Consensus among speakers at the event, addressing the question of lessons earned from observing the ongoing conflict, focused on the issues of the changing nature of warfare, specifically with regard to the all-embracing nature of conflict. The proliferation of UAS, the effectiveness of relatively cheap anti-tank weapons, the surprising effectiveness of light armour and the logistics challenges in keeping up with prodigious consumption of munitions have all been noted and emphasised.

Tim Mahon at IAV for MON