On the Organisation of Command and Control in the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The conditions of modern warfare — failed to avoid — demand not only sustained expert reflection on national security, military technologies, weapons systems and information networks, but also a deeper understanding of the nature and history of war itself. The outbreak of war created a new reality — one that requires not only ongoing expert analysis of national security, military technologies, weapons systems and information networks, but also a deeper understanding of the nature and history of war itself. Only by studying the evolution of defence technologies can we begin to understand emerging threats. These, in turn, shape the strategy for victory.

The scope of issues that merit analysis is undeniably vast. Every component of this spectrum is essential. Much has been said recently about the creation of army corps. For us, the military, this is primarily a matter of command and control.

Commanding troops is a true art, honed throughout the history of warfare. A historical perspective offers a chance to identify enduring trends in the development of military command — trends that, ideally, would help us avoid repeating past mistakes. That, at least, is how it should be.

What, then, happened in the Armed Forces of Ukraine?

Our military, over more than 30 years of independence, has developed its own story. When I joined what is now the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it was still a fully Soviet army in structure and spirit, with all its hallmarks intact — none of which were considered a threat. Later, the Soviet army was merely dressed in a Ukrainian camouflage pattern, while the country’s political leadership, driven primarily by economic motives, left the military utterly unfit for combat and certainly not ready for war.

I once heard it said that the “vast size of the inherited army and weapons arsenal was the key obstacle to effective reform.” Indeed, in 1991 Ukraine inherited five ground armies (formations composed of two or more corps), four air armies, one air defence army, one strategic missile army, 21 divisions, one army corps, three airborne brigades, 34 military educational institutions, logistics and support units, and the headquarters of three military districts, totalling some 780,000 personnel.

There is little point in recounting what followed. I will only pause to note that, at the time of their establishment, Ukraine’s Armed Forces included — alongside the General Staff and the commands of individual service branches — five ground armies (each comprising two or more corps), four air armies, one air defence army, one strategic missile army, 21 divisions, one army corps and three airborne brigades.

By 2022, as the war accelerated at breakneck speed and we sought to urgently rebuild our command system by reintroducing army corps, one government official told me: “That’s a Soviet relic.” Regrettably, some within the military leadership echoed this sentiment.

Another key factor influencing our command system was the deepening relationship with NATO. While the Russian army was gaining combat experience through conflicts in the Caucasus, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were gaining exposure primarily through peacekeeping missions and joint exercises. This experience helped to refine our own reform efforts, increasingly oriented towards what became known as “NATO standards.”

The apex of this shift was the Ministry of Defence Order No. 141, issued on March 29, 2019. Few remember it today — many of those who helped draft and implement it are no longer in service. As it happened, I was among its principal implementers — first at the strategic level, then operationally. I came to understand the full depth of what was arguably the first truly fundamental reform of Ukraine’s military command system.

Its full title was: “On the Transformation of the System of Joint Command and Control of Defence Forces and Military Leadership in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Though a subordinate legal act, it was grounded in the laws of Ukraine, presidential decrees, and decisions of the National Security and Defence Council. For the first time, a defence ministry directive established a mechanism and procedure to complete the formation of an effective system of joint command and control, aligned with the principles and standards adopted by NATO member states.

Was this the result of a historical retrospective? Absolutely. NATO operational reviews introduced the concepts of joint command and joint operations — concepts of great interest from an operational art perspective. These operations are inherently joint in nature and are conducted by joint forces. Accordingly, operations across all domains — land, sea, air and cyber — are fundamentally joint or multi-domain. They are conducted by composite formations involving all service branches and components of the national defence forces. So far, so good. The experience is worthy of emulation, and the direction toward NATO integration is clear.

But there is a caveat. Under NATO doctrine, operations are categorised as follows:

• At the strategic level: the level at which armed forces are employed within a political framework as part of a collective strategy to achieve alliance-wide objectives;
• At the operational level: the level at which campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted and sustained to accomplish strategic aims in a theatre or operational area;
• At the tactical level: the level at which forces are employed to execute military tasks and achieve objectives that, in turn, support success at the operational and strategic levels.

Beneath the clarity of this structure lies a critical difference from what we faced in 2022. These operations do not envisage war conducted along an extensive front line. They are mostly expeditionary and inherently collective in nature. Commanding such actions differs fundamentally from managing a full-scale war. Did we know then that we would soon pay a heavy price for this? Probably not. Could we have considered alternative experiences? Probably not either.

On March 31, 2020, Order No. 106 of the Ministry of Defence declared Order No. 141 (from March 29, 2019) “On the Transformation of the System of Joint Command and Control of Defence Forces and Military Leadership” (as amended) to be fulfilled and thus no longer in force.

In December 2019, I was appointed commander of Operational Command North. That was the end of my direct involvement with Order No. 141. On the evening of July 27, 2021, I entered the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — this time as its new holder. The command system, both at the strategic and operational levels, remained in the same state as I had left it. In line with NATO principles and standards, Ukraine’s Armed Forces effectively had:

• At the strategic level: a single command authority — the Joint Operational Headquarters led by the Commander of Joint Forces;
• At the operational level: five authorities — Operational Commands North, South, West, and East, each with their own headquarters, plus a Joint Forces Command operating in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

According to the scheme I had developed, the Joint Forces Command could establish an additional operational-level command structure within its organizational framework. This meant that the number of bodies capable of operational planning and command had increased to one at the strategic level and six at the operational level.

Moreover, the reform had, in essence, been completed at the strategic level. The roles of the Minister of Defence and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces were finally separated. The function of forming state defence policy was clearly distinguished from the function of its implementation. Likewise, the planning of capability development was separated from the operational (day-to-day) activities of the General Staff and the military command structures.

Perhaps for the first time, the function of force generation was separated from that of force employment. The generation of forces became the primary task of the commanders of the services and individual branches of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They were now responsible for the development of their subordinate forces, their technical equipment, comprehensive support, training, and readiness to carry out assigned missions.

The Commander of the Joint Forces, within the framework of defence tasks, was to employ the assigned forces via the Joint Operational Headquarters (which was to evolve into the Joint Forces Command).

At the operational level, the situation was different. Reforms had barely begun and were far from complete. At the tactical level, they hadn’t even started. In effect, this meant that while joint-command structures and procedures were in place at the strategic level, the operational and tactical levels remained in transition. Later, the absence of a functioning vertical — particularly in training and force generation — began to cause serious problems.

By the way, the very system for developing and approving such systems is still under discussion. To put it mildly — still under discussion. On the one hand, this raised concerns, but on the other — it gave us, the commanders, the freedom to experiment and offer at least some kind of solution. For instance, in May 2021, while I was the commander of Operational Command North, I conducted an exercise with one of the mechanized brigades. The emphasis was not only on what’s called “combined training,” which includes both inter-service and inter-branch components. The main focus was our attempt to create a prototype of the first situational awareness system. As my subordinates and the volunteers who helped us source the equipment at their own expense put it, the key technical solution at the time was office tape. With it, we managed to link up the systems for reconnaissance, command and control, and fire support.

Despite the strong interest from other commanders and senior officers present at the exercise, the response we received was: “What kind of cartoons are you showing here?” Later, already in the context of emerging situational awareness systems, another anecdotal situation occurred. In the fall of 2021, by then serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, I received an official warning from one oversight body demanding the immediate suspension of the Kropyva software in the military. Of course, I ignored it. Soon after, the full-scale war began.

The absence of automated command systems led to another issue. At a command post, the only asset was the trained personnel. Thus, the result depended entirely on their skills and knowledge. It is no surprise, then, that the Joint Operational Headquarters, staffed by career officers, needed time to coordinate — time we didn’t have.

All of this, already by late 2021, had raised serious doubts, confirmed during a series of staff exercises that continued up to the beginning of the invasion.

Another issue was that operational commands, as branches and services of the Armed Forces, had a “force-generation” function. This meant their headquarters were burdened with a dual load. The organizational structure of the Ground Forces Command, which could theoretically perform planning and control functions, lacked the necessary planning bodies. The General Staff, in turn, was tasked with different functions altogether. Of course, all this had to be fixed on the fly after the full-scale invasion began.

I also recall one episode. In the spring of 2022, I was flipping through a military textbook. The author and origin of it, understandably, cannot be named today. But page 308 — I nearly wore it out. I showed it to many people, both in and out of uniform.

Here’s what it said:

“Efforts to improve the command structure were not without mistakes. With the onset of the war, one such mistake was the elimination of corps headquarters. By the end of 1941, only six of the original 62 corps commands remained, while the number of general army headquarters increased from 27 to 582. In the absence of corps commands, army commanders had to create temporary operational control groups for different sectors.

Combat realities eventually forced the reintroduction of corps-level commands. Between 1942 and 1943, the number of corps rose to 161. The creation of powerful mechanized, tank, artillery, and anti-aircraft formations during the war significantly improved the command system. In total, it took more than two years of war to develop an optimal command structure, which was mostly finalized only by late 1943.”

At the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ command system began adapting continuously to the battlefield reality. The unprecedented scale of the invasion required a sharp increase in the number of command bodies and command posts. This was primarily driven by the growing spatial extent of combat zones and the sheer number of troops involved.

In the early days of the invasion, we were able to activate all available resources — including the command structures of branches and services. But by summer, the situation had changed dramatically. I personally insisted on the Ground Forces Command taking an active role in mobilization and training of reserves — training that often triggered public debate. It was critical to engage all available resources of this command. After all, the commander and his deputies were actively involved in operational control on the ground.

We also needed to engage operational commands based on geographic sectors. However, since they were being tapped to reinforce other command structures, they could hardly fulfill this role. Unfortunately, the situation unfolded differently.

By summer 2022, the Ukrainian military command system looked as follows:

• at the strategic level — the General Staff;
• at the operational and operational-tactical levels — 24 different command bodies operating in various directions.

This meant a shortage of at least 18 trained command units. These were supposed to be fully formed and capable of operating under various conditions. Due to time constraints, temporary command bodies were often staffed using personnel from as many as 10 or more different military units.

Naturally, personnel assigned this way could not function effectively. Training them, building cohesion, and gaining operational experience — all amid constant shifts in the battlefield situation — only made the problem worse.

As more units were added to combat groupings, the number of command nodes increased. This sometimes reduced the overall manageability and led to rapid burnout among command staff. A key reason was that a commander might simultaneously oversee 15–20 brigades, while individual brigade commanders might have more than 12 battalions under their control across a broad frontline. Given the intensity of operations, there was little time to conduct detailed analysis or planning. Attention and resources were focused entirely on reacting in real time. In some cases, this led to so-called “manual control,” where a senior commander would give orders directly to subordinate units, bypassing the chain of command. The result was a loss of responsibility and, at times, initiative.

Another major weakness was the absence of a strategic-level military intelligence command — along with the corresponding assets. New long-range weapons required the rapid establishment of real-time intelligence sharing. The General Staff lacked both the institution and the function for intelligence support. Technically, we eventually resolved this problem. We implemented a strong idea — using civilian satellite services to gather and process intelligence. We also built a hierarchical structure down to the operational level, enabling group commanders to quickly deploy resources. Unfortunately, this command was one of the first to be shut down.

So I can say with confidence: already in the early phase of the full-scale invasion, the Armed Forces’ command system showed critical flaws — both in terms of function and hierarchy.

That is why, in the summer of 2022, the General Staff initiated the transition to army corps-level commands. “Initiated” is not quite the right word — an enormous collective effort went into preparing a model that would meet the demands not only of today, but of the future. It was not just about designing a command structure, but also supporting bodies, communications, logistics — and permanent basing locations.

It was also crucial to build a future-oriented model of the Armed Forces, in which the hierarchy of command would match long-term strategic needs. That model was finalized by the end of summer 2022. It envisioned a corps–division–brigade structure for the Ground Forces. The idea received backing from both U.S. and British partners. Ultimately, we succeeded in establishing the 9th and 10th Corps and launched their accelerated training. Unfortunately, the initiative was later blocked. The Air Assault Corps, which was about to begin training abroad, remained only on paper.

A military command body is extremely complex. Of course, I agree — it is far from perfect. But command structures are not only critical — they are also highly vulnerable. To the enemy, and to over-centralization. Victory on tomorrow’s battlefield depends entirely on how well today’s command structures are trained and prepared. It does not matter what they are called — or who commands them.

To ensure effective command and control in complex, often critical conditions — and to gain an edge over the enemy in the management domain — we must:

• constantly improve the technological foundation of command and control;
• introduce automated systems and situational awareness capabilities at all command levels; and, above all, enhance the professional training of command staff — especially their ability to think creatively. That means the ability to anticipate, to analyze the situation, and to work with large datasets.

The success of future command structures will rest on intellectual strength, depth of foresight, originality of design — and flexibility in aligning forces, tools, and decisions.