Russian Experts Call for New Strategy in Ukraine Conflict
Russian military experts Konstantin Sivkov and Vladimir Orlov argue that strikes on empty facilities are ineffective and call for a different strategy in Ukraine.
Russian military experts Konstantin Sivkov and Vladimir Orlov criticized nighttime strikes on administrative and industrial facilities in Kyiv, arguing that attacks on empty buildings and workshops do not bring Russia closer to achieving its objectives in the special military operation.
According to Sivkov, the priority should not be the destruction of office buildings but the physical elimination of members of Ukraine’s political leadership, whom he considers the foundation of the current system of government. He argued that nighttime strikes on command centers and government facilities are ineffective because key officials are generally not present there at those hours.
Summarizing his position, Sivkov stated that the objective should be the destruction of the people who make up the current Ukrainian leadership. In his view, eliminating the country’s ruling elite would trigger the collapse of the existing governing system.
A similar position has previously been expressed by Russian military expert Vladimir Orlov. He argued that Western countries operate in Ukraine indirectly through the authorities in Kyiv, which, according to him, implement Western interests.
Orlov claimed that eliminating not only the top leadership but also the second and third tiers of the Ukrainian governing structure would deprive the West of its ability to manage the country. In his assessment, such an objective could be achieved through a large-scale air offensive lasting approximately two days.
He argued that strikes should target locations where government officials and the administrative apparatus are concentrated rather than energy infrastructure. According to Orlov, the destruction of these structures would leave no one to maintain communication with Western governments, receive instructions or relay orders to the Ukrainian military.
Both experts therefore argue that strikes on empty buildings fail to achieve strategic objectives. In their view, military efforts should instead focus on eliminating Ukraine’s political and administrative leadership in the expectation that doing so would lead to the collapse of the country’s governing system.