"Soviet Counterinsurgency: Successes and Failures" Topic

"…
Some interesting tidbits from the "Cheka-Military operations for the Liquidation of the German-Ukrainian Nationalist Bands" which was launched in March 1944 after the UPA assassinated Marshal Vatutin. The Soviets initially committed 30,000 troops with air and artillery support, NKVD, etc against ~5,000 Ukraine insurgents in Volyhnia, with the result that they took 10% casualties and the Ukrainians escaped encirclement, albeit at cost to themselves.

Khrushchev was appointed to head the operation in summer 1944 (he leaves out this period in his memoirs…). Once the Soviet force surged to 600,000 and they got more aggressive, they are supposed to have taken horrible casualties. Between 1944 and 1946, a rate of 10 Soviet casualties for every insurgent, reduced to 3 for every 1 insurgent between Jan-July 1946 when the insurgency was finally broken by a combination of burning down entire forests and villages. In late 1945 the disgust with the tactics employed, by the Soviet troops themselves, required some army divisions to be swapped out for more NKVD ones.

Lithuania went a bit better. With 110,000 troops chasing ~5,000 insurgents, between June and Sept 1946, they lost 400 troops and got 500 Lithuanian insurgents, but the campaign continued until 1952…"

More here

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Armand

NATO war in Afghanistan. The Western coalition outnumbers the rebels twice as much and absolutely outguns them in technical means)))

Comparing numbers in a guerrilla war is uninformative. You will be forced to maintain garrisons, protect communications and carry out direct combat operations… You need many, many more troops than the guerrillas. And victory by armed means is practically impossible – to win, it is necessary to gain the loyalty of the local population – or to completely destroy it (which, most likely, will lead to the opposite, to increased resistance).

Immediately after WWII didn't the Russians execute German civilians when they were attacked by members of the "Werewolves?" It seems to have worked.

Churchill and Bomber Harris solved the problem in Iraq after WWI:
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Wolfhag

Thanks

Armand

Wolfhag, where and when? Preferably with documentary confirmation of such facts.

As for Iraq, this is not quite the right comparison. Firstly, there was no need to occupy territories as such. There was a need to bring a local tribe to obedience, i.e. reliance was on the authority of a single local leader. Secondly, such control requires overwhelming technical superiority over the rebels. In the modern world, this is practically impossible. That is why since 1948 the "air control" tactic has become a thing of the past and has never worked again.

The Soviets also had extensive experience in pacifying Central Asian rebels (Basmachi). And they also destroyed armed jihadist units from the air and on the ground. But the most effective methods were doctors, schools, anti-religious propaganda, improving living conditions, land reclamation, freeing women, and the like. The Basmachi lost their footing among the local population and simply disappeared.

Soviet reconnaissance light attack aircraft R-1 in Central Asia.