“We have a new phase of war, and that is a fact,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview in December 2023. He was in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, taking a morale-boosting tour of the northeastern region on the border with Russia.
Ukraine’s then-commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, had previously commented that the war had reached a “stalemate.” With U.S. Republican politicians blocking aid for Ukraine, the country will likely continue to get less over time and won’t be receiving the weapons that it needs to win the war on the battlefield.
Recent Republican opposition compounds President Joe Biden’s policy over the prior two years of slow-walking much-needed weapons, such as the long-range ATACMS missile system, Abrams tanks, and F-16 fighter jets.
However, with a stagnant frontline in the ground war, Ukrainian intelligence must seize the opportunity to regain the momentum. Former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley also advised the Ukrainians to send sabotage groups into the Russian rear, saying there “should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night.”
There are several historical examples which Ukraine could emulate, but the best are covert operations by the British and Americans during World War II. The infamous British Special Operations Executive and U.S. Office of Strategic Services both utilized subversion and sabotage to great effect. Israel has also utilized similar tactics to neutralize terrorist organizations or engage in retaliatory action, such as Operation Wrath of God, which aimed to assassinate its enemies abroad in response to the 1972 Munich massacre.
During World War II, the the British Special Operations Executive (sometimes nicknamed the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) instructed local populations in sabotage, assisted rebellions, and supported coups. Meanwhile, the Americans engaged in sabotage, helped resistance fighters, and trained troops in places like China.
Mossad’s Operation Wrath of God targeted perpetrators of the Munich terrorist attack in 1972. These types of operations by Israel have historically been effective at disrupting terrorist organizations, though not usually in fully eliminating the organizations.
Ukraine has a myriad of options for covert operations. This could include targeting oil and gas production to disrupt the Russian war’s economic basis, as well as obstructing shipping lanes and disabling ships in order to disrupt Russian supply lines and logistics. Paramilitary operations could include sabotage of infrastructure, targeting key military figures, and supporting separatists and dissident groups within the Russian Federation.
On the cyber warfare front, operators and patriotic hackers could target the Russian energy grid, military suppliers, government agencies, and other critical infrastructure using tactics as varied as distributed denial-of-service attacks to wiper viruses, whose goal is merely disruption.
There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to focusing on covert operations as a strategy for Ukraine. Such an approach would be cheaper, easier, and require fewer personnel than fighting the Russians on the open battlefield. The process is also more democratized than full-scale warfare, in that people of many different backgrounds can step into roles that enable non-governmental groups such as hacktivists and volunteer militias to participate. This makes covert operations scalable to the resources available.
Finally, this approach significantly distracts Russian resources, which are being depleted at a rate that makes their occupation untenable long term.
However, there are also major disadvantages to focusing on covert operations. Most importantly, governments often struggle to control groups (whether official or unofficial) that participate in covert operations due to the often-autonomous and distributed nature of these activities. This in turn increases the likelihood of civilians being targeted or harmed.
Covert operations embrace the unfortunate reality that the current war will go on for years. Typically, wars are only won decisively on the battlefield, but a strategy of covert operations would enable Ukraine to wear down the Russian will to wage its war until the Russians themselves choose to withdraw.
Should Ukraine choose to take such a covert approach, they will need a deliberate strategy to focus on the will of the Russian people and stakeholders in government. As military theorist Carl von Clausewitz taught, there is an important relationship between the people (moral and support), the military (capability to fight), and the government (direction and leadership). Remove one of the three, and war becomes too difficult to wage. Ukrainian covert operations can target elements within this framework that are out of the reach of traditional, direct military action.
Nonetheless, with the battlefield remaining stagnant and Russia continuing to leverage its human wave tactics of throwing its soldiers into a meat grinder, Ukraine will likely need to seek new means and ends to wear out Russia’s will and capability to wage war. For example, there won’t be much of a city left for Ukraine to control in Avdiivka, as Ukrainian troops will eventually need to retreat. Putin hopes to achieve some success on the battlefield before the Russian presidential elections in March 2024, two years into his “special military operation.” However, even if Russia does manage to achieve battlefield success with Avdiivka, if Ukraine manages to pull off successful high-profile covert operations, such actions could help undermine Putin’s credibility in the face of the Russian people.
The present situation is precarious for Ukrainian leaders domestically. Zelensky recently removed Zaluzhny. Meanwhile, mobilization continues to be a pressure point for the government and society.
U.S. domestic politics also influence domestic sentiment in Ukraine. Republicans continue to prevent aid for Ukraine that the country desperately needs to maintain its fighting position, eroding trust by the Ukrainian population in their leaders’ ability to manage international relationships in a way that will result in Ukrainian victory.
Ukraine will need to pursue bold action to break the will of Russian leadership, making sure that Putin’s inner circle and the oligarchs that support him won’t sleep easy at night. Just as Ukrainian drone actions against Moscow struck a nerve, if Ukraine began extensive covert operations inside Russia, it could chip away at the power base behind support for Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. Dr. Treston Wheat is an intelligence research specialist with a private geopolitical risk consultancy and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.