How the Kremlin turned defeat into doctrine Russia’s war of adaptation

When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western observers largely viewed it as a military blunder destined to expose Russia’s weakness. Yet, as Foreign Affairs notes in its revealing analysis of the Kremlin’s wartime evolution, Russia has quietly transformed from a stumbling invader into a learning, adaptive war machine — one that is systematically converting battlefield failures into institutional knowledge and long-term reform.

At the heart of the article is the argument that Russia has built a “learning-industrial complex” — an ecosystem linking its armed forces, defense industry, universities, and research institutions to capture and apply lessons from the front. What began as improvised, soldier-to-soldier advice in the early months of the war has evolved into a state-directed learning process. By 2023, over twenty military commissions were reportedly working to process and disseminate combat lessons through bulletins, conferences, and revised manuals — more than 450 interim changes in total.

This feedback loop has translated into tangible battlefield improvements. Russian forces have refined small-unit tactics, strengthened their logistics and electronic warfare systems, and increased the lethality of their glide bombs and drones. Start-ups are now collaborating with state arms giants, while frontline data flows directly to design bureaus. The Ministry of Defence’s creation of Rubikon — a dedicated drone experimentation unit — epitomises the shift from bureaucratic inertia to rapid innovation.

Training, too, has undergone a metamorphosis. Russia has updated its simulators, tactical medicine courses, and small-unit leadership training, even granting junior officers limited autonomy in mission planning — a striking departure from the military’s rigid Soviet-style hierarchy. Though these efforts remain uneven, they show a military trying to prepare for a future defined by drones, AI-driven targeting, and decentralised operations.

Still, Foreign Affairs stresses that Moscow’s learning has limits. Persistent indiscipline, poor quality control, and brutal command practices continue to undermine performance. Russian units often fail to coordinate, morale is uneven, and post-training implementation lags behind doctrinal theory. The article cites disturbing signs — from unsanitary field medicine to renewed reliance on attritional tactics — as proof that institutional culture is slower to evolve than battlefield improvisation.

Yet the Kremlin’s ambitions extend beyond Ukraine. Russian military thinkers envision a post-war force heavily reliant on autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and uncrewed platforms. Moscow’s theorists now regard drone swarms and AI-enabled command systems as central to twenty-first-century warfare — technologies that could offset manpower shortages and counter NATO’s conventional edge.

The message to Western policymakers is clear: Russia is not the exhausted, chaotic power many assumed. It is absorbing, adjusting, and sharing its lessons with partners like China, Iran, and North Korea. The West, therefore, cannot afford complacency. As the Foreign Affairs piece concludes, “to avoid falling behind, Washington and Europe must start studying Russia’s studying.”

The war in Ukraine has become more than a territorial struggle — it is a race of adaptation. And while Russia’s progress remains constrained by corruption and cost, its capacity to learn from failure may prove to be its most dangerous weapon of all.

By Vugar Khalilov