A NATO command post undertook an analysis of the state of Ukranian forces following 11 months of war.
One of the important conclusions reached is that the quality of Ukranian complements continues to fall.
The primary reason is due to high losses of personnel suffered from the period of March to September.
Particularly experienced and prepared troops of the infantry, airborne, and Spetsnaz forces were practically destroyed.
In March their professional forces (that is, men who have served for at least a year) in infantry brigades made up approximately half of the unit, while if accounting mobilized personnel with any battle experience in Donbass or simply any experience in the armed forces, it rises to about 65%.
By august, the professional core dropped to a remaining composition of about 20% of the total, and that of mobilized with experience to about 35%.
Going into December, there remain only 15-20% of infantry tempered in battle, and of those, almost only remnants of mobilized forces which experienced some combat.
Remnants of experienced professional core troops had fallen to 10% of unit composition, of which in turn that number primarily consists of those who had prior service in the Soviet armed forces
In 11 months, some infantry Brigades have been reformed three times over (rotating out and replenshing personnel after suffering up to 50% losses), and today the professional core remnants are preserved by operating in command and control units behind the immediate line of contact.
Today the front soldiers are now a rotational force, constantly supplemented with rookies, and this brings about a marked decline in morale in vanguard troops.
If in Spring hyper-motivated troops made up 70% of a unit, now it is safe to say that such men compose no more than a quarter of a unit. Even in the official Corps, no more than half.
Because of this, the amount of men in mobilized waves who choose to go willingly to war when called was about 1 in 10, including from called up reservists and Officer Corps.
They both have a shared apathy, no longer believing in a Ukrainian victory and experiencing a bloody fear.
The number of men hiding from mobilization is enormous.
The situation in armored cavlary forces is somewhat different. Tank forces have preserved some 40% of their core personnel, artillery up to 65%, but even here high losses have had their effects. Motivation here has also significantly fallen.
A large portion of extant forces in these units are motivated by vengeance for dead friends, and are often named “trade corruptionists”.
As such, primary factors in such cases remain faith in help and support. Deliveries of foreign technical equipment (heavy armor) and weapons reinforce the hopes that, with support from Western nations, the UF will be able to route the “Russian army”.
But in the last two months, due to RF re-taking intiative and UF experiencing poor fortunes on the fronts, a shared consensus has arisen that soon NATO itself will step into the war directly, and that this factor will make or break the war
Other than the sharp fall of professionalism and motivation, NATO specialists observe serious problems in education of the populace. For two months, half of the mobilized forces with no prior military service have simply been impossible to train due to lack of education, skills, and discipline. As such a large part of these forces are deployed to the front with only the most basic of preparation and suffer extraordinary losses in the face of intense battles.
The more qualified ones are trained by the alliance, up to about 3,000 men per month, but this is clearly insufficient to replace losses.
Therefore right now, all commanding elements of Ukraine and NATO are at a loss as to how to form new assault Corps, in which consolidation of new heavy armor, artillery, and training of personnel must take place with existing personnel at hand.
It is specifically these forces that in Spring must become the primary armed forces of the UF in order destroy RF forces in the Cherson front.
