By Todd Davis
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinions on ScoonTV
What is a Schwerpunkt? The term comes from Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in his seminal book Vom Kriege and can be translated as a “point of focus” or “center of gravity.” Schwerpunkt heavily influenced German military doctrine in the Second World War, leading to spectacular armored offensives. This lineage has become the skeleton upon which modern military theory about mobile warfare has been built.
The conflict in Ukraine over the last 4+ years has drawn comparisons to World War One, being viewed as a regressive series of small engagements, none of them decisive, designed to cause attrition. The nations of the early 20th century proved time and again that a modern state can take a great deal of punishment before attrition has any effect on combat capabilities, particularly when on the defensive.
Why has Russia failed to create a Schwerpunkt in Ukraine despite a plethora of military advantages that should have allowed it to succeed long ago?
To answer this question, we must first define what Schwerpunkt is not. It is not merely the concentration of troops, nor the massing of artillery, nor the designation of an axis on a map. Schwerpunkt is the unity of decision. The alignment of purpose, timing, logistics, command authority, and operational freedom at a single decisive point. Russia in Ukraine has failed not because it lacks forces, but because it has failed to achieve this unity.
Errors in Russian Strategic Planning
Russia has made numerous self-inflicted errors over the course of this war. The most obvious is an absence of operational clarity. From the beginning of the invasion, Russian goals were vague, almost theatrical in design, as a show of force meant to intimidate rather than secure decisive results. They were operating on far too broad a front with far too few men. A lack of focus has continued year after year.
In Ukraine, Russian operations have repeatedly pursued simultaneous and contradictory goals: territorial seizure, political signaling, attrition, and intimidation. This disperses effort. When everything is important, nothing becomes decisive.
Today, Russia is fighting three wars at once. A limited political war to control escalation and optics, an attritional industrial war designed to exhaust Ukraine, and a maneuver war in rhetoric only. Schwerpunkt demands commitment to the third alone.
Schwerpunkt demands acceptance of risk elsewhere. The Russian command has shown a persistent reluctance to strip secondary sectors to reinforce the decisive one. The result is broad pressure everywhere and decisive pressure nowhere.
Fragmented Command and Logistical Rigidity
Encirclements win wars. One of Ukraine’s great strengths is a robust and aggressive publicity campaign. For years, Ukraine was able to define the war on its terms. Either Ukraine was winning, or the front was a stalemate. This view has entrenched European support to such a degree that it is now unthinkable for Europe to accept a conclusion to the war that looks like Russian victory.
Had Russia been able to encircle and capture tens of thousands of Ukrainians, that perception would have been shattered, and peace terms would have been sought long ago. Encirclement operations require tempo, and tempo requires subordinate initiative. In the Second World War, according to German theory and practice, each commander was responsible for concentrating his forces at the right weight of effort (Schwerpunktbildung) promptly. Further, this initiative responsibility extended down from the Army Group, to the Corps, to the Division, right down to the platoon. Russian command culture remains rigid, centralized, and reactive. Tactical success cannot be exploited rapidly when every deviation requires higher approval.
Ukrainian forces, by contrast, trade space for time and counterstroke locally. This repeatedly disrupts Russian exploitation phases, turning penetrations into salients rather than pockets.
A Schwerpunkt is sustained not by enthusiasm, but by logistics that move faster than resistance collapses. Russian logistics are linear, predictable, and vulnerable. Rail dependence limits operational flexibility; road-bound resupply exposes columns to interdiction by MLRS and drones.
Without assured fuel, ammunition, and recovery support, armored forces cannot outrun the enemy’s ability to seal the breach. Encirclement without sustainment becomes self-encirclement. We see this time, and again when Russia achieves a victory over one of Ukraine’s Festungs, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Pokrovsk, instead of breaking out and encircling retreating AFU formations, Russia finds itself stuck in a salient exposed to heavy asymmetrical attrition.
Defensive Advantages and Lack of Exploitation Forces
Undoubtedly, Ukraine benefits from defensive advantages. Advantages that have always been inherent to military defense have been amplified by modern surveillance and drone warfare.
In earlier wars, the defender often lost situational awareness once penetrated. Today, persistent surveillance, drones, and precision fires allow Ukrainian forces to observe the buildup, strike the spearhead, and isolate the attacker’s logistics before a true breakthrough forms.
A Schwerpunkt that is visible days in advance is no Schwerpunkt at all. It is merely a target.
Russia does no favors for itself by never having an exploitation force available to capitalize on gains made. The Russian system is too rigid. A penetration is only the opening act. Encirclement requires mobile, rested, and properly commanded exploitation forces held back for the decisive moment. Russia has frequently committed its best formations early, leaving no operational reserve capable of rapid maneuver once a gap appears.
Attrition warfare consumes precisely the formations needed for maneuver warfare.
Finally, a war conducted under political hesitation cannot achieve operational decisiveness. Encirclements are destructive, costly, and irreversible. Russian leadership has repeatedly constrained operations to avoid escalation, preserve forces, or manage domestic optics. Such restraint is incompatible with decisive operational art.
Russia’s failure is not one of bravery or numbers, but of operational coherence. Schwerpunkt requires concentration of force, freedom of maneuver, acceptance of risk, and ruthless clarity of purpose. Ukraine has denied Russia these conditions through defense-in-depth, rapid adaptation, and constant disruption of tempo.
One cannot improvise a breakthrough. It must be prepared, concealed, sustained, and exploited. In Ukraine, Russia has achieved none of these simultaneously and therefore achieves no encirclement.
The Red Army and Operation Bagration
Operation Bagration, which led to the destruction of the German Army Group Center in 1944, was the pinnacle of Soviet blitzkrieg. The student had finally become the master. The Soviets had become virtuosos at operational art in depth. They created penetration divisions to rupture the front, then unleashed mechanized exploitation forces to drive to the operational rear, often encircling the enemy in multiple pockets. They combined reserves, mobility, and deception, with political will supporting ruthless execution.
Soviets often attacked relatively open terrain or sparsely defended positions, where mechanized exploitation could sweep forward with speed. And while Ukraine’s defense is urbanized, networked, and fortified, with rivers, forests, and prepared obstacles, the Soviets faced a similar network during Bagration, where the Germans had anchored their defenses around the towns of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, and Bobruysk.
Soviet deep operations relied on specialized divisions for breakthrough and exploitation. Assault infantry to crack the tactical belt, then mechanized or cavalry formations in operational reserve, ready to drive deep. The Red Army of 1944 practiced flexible command, even under Stalin’s scrutiny. Army commanders were given clear objectives and freedom to exploit. Soviet successes were backed by rail, field depots, and coordinated resupply of fuel, ammunition, and spare parts. Stalin’s Red Army benefited from a political environment that, while ruthless, allowed operational decisiveness.
Modern Russian formations are not configured this way. They mix assault and mechanized units without a clear operational separation. Their armored units are heavily committed early, leaving little in reserve for rapid exploitation once a breach is made. Russian command remains highly centralized and cautious, with every movement scrutinized. Breakthroughs require immediate exploitation; hesitation turns a potential pocket into a salient. And a salient invites counterattack.
Even if Russia identifies a breakthrough point, logistics limit operational depth. Ukrainian reconnaissance operating with NATO intelligence and unified through Starlink is able to direct precision fire that allows defenders to identify the narrow corridors where exploitation would succeed and target them in advance. Speed alone is insufficient if the path is watched and interdicted. Russian advances tend to be linear, road-bound, and easily disrupted by Ukrainian artillery fire and drones.
Tanks and mechanized formations cannot advance faster than their fuel and ammunition, unlike the Soviet exploitation corps, which had meticulously planned support. Modern Russia, constrained by international optics, sanctions, and internal politics, cannot fully commit to the destruction of forces or the risk of overextension. Exploitation requires accepting losses and risk. Something Putin’s leadership is reluctant to sanction.
A question could be asked, why can’t the Russians read their own history, follow their battleplans, and achieve victory on virtually the same terrain they fought over in the Second World War? The answer is complex. One cannot simply read history and apply it mechanically. Deep operations worked because the Soviets synchronized force composition, logistics, timing, terrain analysis, and command culture. All of which require years of institutional adaptation. Russia today has the memory of 1944, but not the preparation, doctrine, or adaptation to modern technology and battlefield conditions.
The Ukrainian Defense
Russia is not facing difficulties on the front only because of operational problems; Ukraine, the AFU, and NATO are active, aggressive belligerents that are compounding Russian difficulties.
Ukraine is not fighting like France in 1940 or Germany in 1944. It fights as a distributed, adaptive system. Command nodes are redundant, units operate semi-independently, led by an excellent cadre of highly motivated and experienced NCOs. Loss of ground does not mean loss of cohesion. Encirclement presumes that trapped forces collapse psychologically and structurally. Ukraine has repeatedly shown that isolation does not equal destruction.
Schwerpunkt is revealed before it moves. On the battlefields of Ukraine, surprise is nearly impossible for Russia. Satellite coverage, signals intelligence, and persistent UAV surveillance ensure that the moment Russia concentrates artillery, armor, engineers, and logistics in one sector, Ukraine knows days in advance. This eliminates deception, the foundation of deep operations.
Ukraine conducts attacks before a Schwerpunkt has the necessary logistical elements in place to succeed. HIMARS strike fuel depots and rail nodes. Command posts are degraded through precision artillery fire. This creates a condition where Russian forces may still attack, but cannot exploit. The Soviets would never have launched an exploitation corps without guaranteed sustainment. Russia does.
Most critical is that Ukraine does not defend the Eastern Front the way the Germans did in 1944. Russian commentary on the war in Ukraine is fond of saying that the AFU clings to every meter of ground as the Germans did. This is not the case. Ukraine defends like a modern elastic force. Light infantry absorbs the shock of the Russian assault while mines and fortifications slow down the armor. When you combine this with a sophisticated drone net, armored operations quickly become untenable. Ukrainian units then withdraw mostly intact. Russian commanders believe they have achieved a penetration when, in fact, they have entered a kill corridor.
Here is where Russia has fallen into an operational trap. Russian doctrine in the war demands continued forward pressure. The “attrition” so widely talked about. Ukrainian doctrine encourages lateral movement, rapid reoccupation of abandoned trenches, and localized counterattacks. The result is that Russian penetrations narrow at the base while the tip extends. Big arrows become tiny needles.
In 1944, Soviet mechanized exploitation armies passed through gaps with speed. Today, Russian mechanized forces lose tempo before momentum, often within 10–20 km. This makes encirclement mathematically impossible. And this is why you see the blob-type of movement by Russian forces across the front.
The recent Battle of Pokrovsk provides an ideal example of this clash of doctrines in action. Russia spent 18 months assembling an attack force capable of taking the city and laying siege to it. Once a major logistical hub for Ukraine, by the time the Russians fought street by street to take the city, alternative supply paths had already been established. After all that time, Russia was unable to exploit the capture of the city because Ukraine launched constant small in scope battalion and brigade-sized counterattacks in the area. Artillery and drones relentlessly target command and logistical nodes. These deny Russia the time needed to consolidate the breach into an operational rupture.
A Schwerpunkt cannot exist when it is observed before movement and struck before contact. A Schwerpunkt cannot exist when it is slowed during the advance, bled during the exploitation, and countered before consolidation. You can see how this has transpired with almost every Russian push. In Ukraine, a breakthrough is permitted, but victory is denied.
The Wehrmacht vs Ukraine
We have seen the challenges Russia has faced when confronted with Ukraine’s modern defensive network. Naturally, the question arises, how would the originators of Schwerpunkt have fared against it? For this exercise, I will use the spring of 1942 Wehrmacht. This version of the Wehrmacht was neither the brittle force of 1945 nor the reckless instrument of 1941. It was at its intellectual peak: operationally confident, tactically flexible, and still capable of sustained maneuver.
Germany would recognize that Ukraine is not a static front. It would quickly understand that it is a systemic defense in depth, designed to deny tempo rather than ground. German Schwerpunkt doctrine would not tolerate the prolonged shaping operations that Russia currently engages in. Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) would identify a narrow operational sector, strip adjacent fronts without hesitation, and create a true Schwerpunkt, not a broad advance. Unlike Russia, it would accept risk elsewhere without apology. This alone would give Germany a better opening than any Russian attempt.
The Wehrmacht excelled at probing to find weakness, not battering everywhere. Infantry and Kampfgruppen would test the elastic defense. Ukrainian withdrawals would be tracked, not celebrated with ceremonial flag raisings over tiny villages. Ukrainian “yielding” ground would be treated with suspicion.
Crucially, OKH would be attempting to create tempo. Infantry divisions supported by artillery would rupture the forward zone while Panzer divisions would wait, intact and unseen. Command authority would be delegated downward. Once penetration occurred, movement would begin immediately, without pause for consolidation. This is where German doctrine truly differs from Russian.
The Wehrmacht would initially succeed against Ukraine because of this tempo. The Germans would be faster at the exploitation of fleeting gaps, have better lateral maneuver, and would undoubtedly employ a more aggressive use of mission command. Ukrainian elastic defense depends on time to re-knit the system. German exploitation would aim to deny that time. For a short period, perhaps days, the Germans would outpace the defense.
After that, Germany would begin to falter because it believed in 1942 that friction comes from terrain and enemy resistance, once the enemy command is dislocated, collapse follows, and encirclement equals destruction. Two of those assumptions would prove false against Ukraine.
In 1942, Germany would not understand battlefield transparency. Reconnaissance meant aircraft, patrols, and radio intercepts. If OKH could not see something, it would assume it was unseen.
Against Ukraine, every Panzer concentration would be observed, every road-bound movement would be tracked, and every resupply effort would be targeted. Germany’s strength, rapid concentration, would become a liability. OKH would believe it had achieved surprise. It would be wrong.
An even greater shock to Germany would be that encirclement would not yield decisive results. The Wehrmacht would create pockets, but Ukrainian forces would continue fighting while isolated, receiving fire support and direction externally. They would then break out in fragments rather than collapse as formations.
The Wehrmacht’s greatest weakness was sustainment. Like Mike Tyson, it had an incredible knockout punch, but when faced with sustained operations, its logistics and air support broke down. Relying on horse-drawn logistics, limited fuel, and no redundancy, Ukrainian precision fire would interdict Germany faster than it could adapt. Panzer divisions would outrun supply and become isolated.
Finally, since Russia has not been able to achieve air supremacy over the front, neither would Germany. In 1942, the Luftwaffe provided local air superiority, close air support, and reconnaissance. It could not permanently suppress dispersed defenses, neutralize deep fire control systems like HIMARS, or protect logistics.
The Wehrmacht would do better than Russia in Ukraine because it would accept risk and concentrate decisively. Exploitations would happen immediately without waiting or ponderous build-ups. The Wehrmacht’s Kampfgruppe system and decentralized command culture were structurally more permissive of subordinate initiative than the contemporary Russian system. Further, the Germans would be more adroit and able to make lateral, aggressive moves to match those conducted by the AFU.
Germany would ultimately be defeated because the principles of Schwerpunkt could not be fully realized by the 1942 Wehrmacht. Battlefield transparency and precision interdiction on a primitive logistical system would be problems for which Germany had no solution. The Germans might achieve operational success early. Germany might even inflict severe losses on Ukraine. But decisive annihilation, the kind sought in 1942, would elude the Germans.
The Wehrmacht of Spring 1942 was a master of movement in a semi-blind battlefield. Ukraine fights in a fully visible one. Against such a defense, German art of maneuver would still matter, but it would not be sufficient to decisively decide the war.
The Battlefield as a Network, not a Front
Ukraine has built a defense designed to defeat armies that seek glory, speed, or annihilation. How then can this defense be decisively broken in a reasonable amount of time? We are better able to answer this question if we begin thinking of the battlefield as a connective network and not a traditional front. At its core, Ukraine isn’t defending territory; it is defending decision-making speed. Defeating this requires disrupting that tempo and generating one’s own. The optimized army for this isn’t asking, how do I break through but rather where does the system become slow, brittle, and confused?
Designing a doctrine around this requires small, modular, and self-sustaining units. Large formations are liabilities in a transparent battlespace. We want battalion and brigade-sized maneuver units capable of independent organic ISR, fire missions, EW, and self-contained logistics. Formations need the ability to operate semi-independently for extended periods.
Command should be distributed so the enemy never knows who is deciding or where. Junior officers would be highly trained in doctrine and free to improvise tactically. Think of it as a series of interconnected Kampfgruppen
Maneuver would still be the decisive aim; however, conditions would need to be created to allow speed to generate unimpeded momentum. We do this through blinding the enemy network and fire control. The attacking formation establishes tempo in the form of fire that doesn’t attempt to overwhelm but instead never rests. Fire shapes, controls, and isolates targets. Persistent and precision-based, this would be networked across echelons.
Practically, this requires an initial stage of system mapping. Within the Ukrainian-style defense, we would identify ISR nodes, logistical rhythms, and decision loops. We aren’t preparing for an attack; we are preparing to spread confusion.
After these have been identified, the attacking army would attempt to gain overwhelming electronic warfare dominance. EW dominance is the new air superiority on the modern battlefield. The goal is to artificially restore the fog of war and blind the enemy through drone suppression capability at scale, satellite disruption or spoofing, and the cyber disruption of fire-control networks.
This restores the precondition of Schwerpunkt: informational asymmetry. Maneuver once again becomes possible after the ISR collapse.
When the attack begins, there should be constant, limited actions that never allow the defender to rest. Raids, probes, and feints across the front. Armor and exploitation forces are kept in reserve, not used to generate a breakthrough. Seams will develop in the enemy lines as network blindness compounds tactical errors. Reserves are no longer freely moved along interior rail lines. Drone nets are blinded and brought down. Deception regains prominence. Bringing down a drone net in one area as a feint to attack another, for example.
At this point, the attacking army needs to function at a high tempo that outpaces the current sensor-to-shooter cycle that reigns in Ukraine. That requires distributed logistics nodes, autonomous resupply, redundant fuel networks, decentralized, AI-assisted command, and extremely high mobility.
We have now partially blinded the defense and are now overwhelming it with reaction speed.
The final phase is the decisive moment, the networked modern era Schwerpunkt. Massive industrial-sized drone swarms proceed layered armored thrusts. Simultaneous deep precision strikes on rear-area decision nodes. Most importantly, operational risk and loss tolerance must be accepted to prevent tempo collapse in this phase as the breakthrough expands. Speed and tempo must be maintained to stay ahead of the disintegrating defense in depth.
The second stage, post-ISR blinding attacking formations, sounds like the post-Soviet Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) idea: modular, combined-arms, semi-independent formations. Russia attempted this precisely because it understood the problems it would face on a modern battlefield. But understanding the problem is not the same as solving it. The BTG failed not because the concept was wrong, but because the social and institutional substrate required to make it work does not exist.
The BTG was a false doppelgänger. BTGs were structurally modular, but cognitively centralized. They have mixed arms on paper and professional contract soldiers, in theory. However, they lack a mature NCO corps and officers trained to think beyond decision tree scripts. There is no trust-based delegation speed in decision-making.
Russia tried to skip the generational work. A successful army capable of conducting these advanced operations requires extreme professionalization, long training cycles, and trust between political and military leadership. The Russian army did not have this foundation. Further, the problem was compounded by the subsequent mobilization and call-up of reserves. To successfully fight on this Ukrainian battlefield, you cannot start with a conscript army, add modern equipment, declare mission command, and achieve what has been described here. Doctrine is but one step in the process. You also need a military culture that takes a generation to mature.
Semi-blind battlefields rewarded concentration. Fully visible battlefields reward disruption of visibility itself. Decisive maneuver in the 21st century requires either blinding the defender, accelerating beyond its targeting cycle, or overwhelming its capacity to respond. Without one or more of these, Schwerpunkt becomes impossible in a transparent battlefield.
Curtis Scoon is the founder of ScoonTv.com Download the ScoonTv App to join our weekly livestream every Tuesday @ 8pm EST! Support true independent media. Become a VIP member www.scoontv.com/vip-signup/ and download the ScoonTv App from your App Store.
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