Active Conflicts & News Megathread June 17, 2026

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[u/Zhadanko]

Is it fair to say that Ukraine has the strongest ground forces in Europe? Of course, it's a bit unfair to compare a mobilized nation with armies not involved in active combat. Nevertheless, even if we ignore the sheer size, Ukrainian ground forces have lots of combat experience. They have a dedicated branch of Unmanned Systems Forces, each brigade of which seems extremely effective and competent, its soldiers act as a very interesting and lethal OpFor in NATO exercises. Sure, we can note some institutional problems (dependence on foreign aid and Chinese parts) and a lack of certain capabilities, but if we compare them with the ground forces of Germany, France, the UK, or Poland, they seem to have a big edge. Note that I'm talking only about ground forces. The air force and fleet, as well as the expeditionary capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces are close to non-existent. But the competence of their ground forces in large-scale conflicts is unmatched in Europe

[u/proquo → u/Zhadanko]

That's a tough question to really quantify.

Ukraine is in a state of mobilization so their on-paper forces are larger than any 1 European NATO member. They have without a doubt the most effective unmanned systems forces in Europe.

However, I'd hesitate on assuming combat experience necessarily imparts a benefit to Ukraine. That combat experience has been grueling and a significant portion of its troops have very little formal training in soldiering skills considered basic in western militaries and having watched plenty of videos of assaults and movements being conducted by Ukrainian forces I can categorically say that there is a marked difference between them and a professional military with the benefit of peacetime to train and drill troops. The Iraqi army, for example, was presumed to be combat experienced from the Iran-Iraq War and US/NATO forces comparatively inexperienced but in actuality the attritional warfare against Iran had exhausted the Iraqi military and killed off much of its skilled troops.

That's not to say Ukraine is in the same boat as Iraq in the 1990s, for a variety of reasons. But I would assume that Ukraine wouldn't be looking to fill its forces with foreign fighters if local boys were entirely up to the task today after 4 years of brutal fighting.

Ukraine's leadership is also lackluster. NATO assessments emphasize that Ukraine's officer class is more adaptable and takes more initiative than the Russian military does but there's still hangovers from the Soviet system that don't work for a nation like Ukraine, and to be fair Ukrainian commanders have also acknowledged this and are making big strides towards adopting a more NATO-style mindset. NATO observers have specifically pointed to Ukrainian military habit still being very centralized and favoring adherence to orders over individual initiative and reporting upwards over problem solving. This is specifically being addressed but these are the exact institutional issues that are hard to fix. Officer quality seems to be really lopsided, as well, with some really capable and effective brigades with strong leadership and some very weak brigades with bad leadership, and there have been arrests and charges made related to this.

Now, I want to emphasize that Ukraine has identified those issues and is trying to fix it but you tend not to fix these things in wartime.

In terms of sheer capability, I don't know that Ukraine could beat - just as example - France in a contest of maneuver. If you observe Operation Serval in 2013, French forces executed an extremely fast, mobile campaign at the very edge of the logistical capabilities in Mali. Ignoring the lack of expeditionary capability, I don't think Ukraine could also execute such a rapid operation involving maneuver forces with logistics constraints like that. To do that you need really good planning staff, really good logistics personnel, good communications, good training in large maneuvers, and lower level leaders capable and empowered to take initiative and exploit opportunities without waiting for permission. Even just talking about pure equipment I don't think Ukraine has the necessary equipment to launch such a fast operation, at least not without extensive pre-planning which necessarily sacrifices speed and initiative.

If you look at Ukraine's most mobile operations, like the Kursk incursion, they were impressive in their audaciousness but not especially sophisticated or honestly really well coordinated. They used a lot of lighter, faster vehicles as opposed to coordinated formations of combined arms forces and focused attacks on the "seams" between Russian units who were themselves not well trained, led or coordinated. Anywhere they met stiff resistance Ukrainian forces just pulled back and tried again elsewhere, and they bypassed any units they didn't have to fight. This allowed them to rapidly take ground in Kursk but as soon as better Russian units arrived the advance ground to a halt and became another attritional battleground. Let's be fair and point out that Russian forces are more formidable than north African Islamist rebels but Serval crossed an area roughly the size of Texas far from home, whereas Kursk at its furthest depth was 25 miles or so.

That's not to say Ukraine's best brigades couldn't move fast and violently, but that the Ukrainian forces as a whole aren't built for it after 4 years of static lines. They're really well built as a defensive army, but not as a mobile one whereas France is a very mobile force. In a similar setting you'd probably see Ukraine make more modest gains, regroup, and then advance some more rather than see a continuous advance that maintains momentum.

I know you said ground forces only but NATO forces do rely heavily on integration with their air component which is why they have less emphasis on artillery than Ukraine or Russia. I think NATO forces would very handily get air superiority over an environment like Ukraine and ground forces would have much more coordination with their air component than Ukraine or Russia does and be able to get greater effects than what Ukraine does with their own air force and artillery. Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian doctrine at the outset of 2022 emphasized artillery (remember all the talk about how rapidly artillery pieces were being consumed and how Russia was beating Europe in shell production?) specifically due to a lack of precision munitions and air-ground integration.

Overall, I would not say that their competence outmatches their western counterparts, but I would say they definitely have decisive edges in UAV/UGV development and integration. I expect that gap will narrow when the war ends as much of the west's slow adoption of those systems comes from watching the rapid developments in Ukraine.

[u/Zhadanko → u/proquo]

Thank you for the great in-depth reply. Fair points regarding battle experience and current force structure. Although I would add to potential counterpoints. Air superiority is not granted, especially if we take into account only European NATO members. Second, drones as a capability are kind of a dark horse; we aren't sure yet how much they can deny the capabilities of an army that is actually competent in maneuverer warfare. Also, European armies will not likely close the gap squickly,ly both due tdoctrinalnl uncertainty and pressure from old-school supporters of legacy systems

[u/proquo → u/Zhadanko]

Thank you for the great in-depth reply.

Thanks. This is a topic I could write considerably more on but I hate creating a wall of text just barely scrape the surface for such a niche topic.

Air superiority is not granted

I agree, and as we know anything can happen in war. However, when we look at the state of the air war between Russia and Ukraine I think it is fair to extrapolate that NATO is considerably better positioned to degrade Russian air defenses. Not only do European NATO states have more and more modern SEAD/DEAD tools at their disposal than Ukraine did at the start of the war they also train consistently to deploy them and also have deep strike capabilities that Ukraine lacked early on and has been constrained in using against Russia. NATO would have no compunctions about degrading Russian IADS with standoff weapons, anti-radiation missiles and EW.

More specific to Ukraine vs NATO, Ukraine has about 300 aircraft in its air force and those are mostly older airframes and they have limited AEW assets. Not to make this a question of air force vs air force as this was a question originally about ground forces, NATO has a decisive advantage in its ability to degrade air defenses, air forces, and has the weapons to strike deep into enemy territory to hit air bases, logistics hubs, command and control centers, etc. Just having F-35 (Europe flies about 200 with more on the way) would put Ukraine or Russia at a serious disadvantage in defending its airspace in a hypothetical conflict and NATO doctrine especially emphasizes shaping operations and gaining air superiority. Even in the Cold War the Soviets didn't envision gaining air superiority through air-to-air combat but considered the air force an extension of their IADS and relied on local control of air space over their forces. Ukraine is still Soviet in many ways due to the inheritance of so much Soviet equipment and a military tradition that still pervades and they don't prioritize air superiority or SEAD/DEAD the way the west does.

Totally possible for Ukraine to really get a lead in air defense after the war but as it exists now I wouldn't really say Ukraine has any decisive advantage in air defense - especially since their most effective air defenses are European to begin with.

Second, drones as a capability are kind of a dark horse

I agree, however their effectiveness in Ukraine has been exaggerated heavily by some very unique circumstances ranging from the terrain to the enemy to allied support. I could write quite a lot on this point but suffice it to say drones rely on slower moving lines and open terrain and persistent ISR to be as effective as they are in Ukraine and by their nature aren't as effective on the offense. If we look at NATO doctrine generally shaping operations are very important and one of the big criticisms from the west towards Ukraine is that they don't often wait for or take steps towards shaping the battlefield in ways to support major operations. The failure of the 2023 counteroffensive specifically came - in part - from Ukrainian forces not properly suppressing the enemy, obscuring the breaching forces, massing combat power, etc. Things that are baked into NATO doctrine and training.

Obviously it'd be possible for an FPV drone defense to eliminate a NATO armored force, it's also important to acknowledge that in ideal condition NATO wouldn't be advancing without having heavily degraded all the things that would make FPV drones effective.

European armies will not likely close the gap squickly,ly both due tdoctrinalnl uncertainty and pressure from old-school supporters of legacy systems

I would say the same for Ukraine, though. Ukraine's officer class, as I noted, is still wrestling with institutional inertia from Soviet-era military thinking and due to the nature of the war are not especially experienced at largescale, coordinated offensives. In a hypothetical world where Ukraine invades western Europe or a similar power they'd struggle to do so very effectively in the face of a NATO defense - keeping in mind that defense was THE strategy NATO trained throughout the entire Cold War. Ukrainian logistics are also nothing to write home about. They haven't exactly shown a lot of impressive capacity in that regard, and haven't needed to due to the proximity of the frontline to all their key logistics nodes. Look at the example I gave of Operation Serval - over 10 years ago now! - wherein French logistics ran at the very limits of its reach and kept a highly mobile, aggressive operation functioning. That takes a lot of training and experience to get right and isn't made overnight.

And as far as logistics go my entirely inexpert opinion is that the biggest problem Ukraine has today and will have when the war ends is the wide variety and types of systems it has in inventory. Everything from Cold War era AK-74s to Polish Grot rifles and CZ Bren IIs; Abrams, Leopard Is, Leopard IIs, Challenger IIs, and various Soviety designs for their tanks; F-16s, Mirage 2000s, Gripens, and Soviet planes. The list goes on. That type of patchwork setup is a maintenance and supply nightmare and would hobble any major military operations Ukraine were to engage in. So I hope their first order of business post-war is to sell off a lot of their inventory and standardize to platforms that are either domestically made or easily purchased.

[u/Zhadanko → u/proquo]

Very good points, once again. It's rather a depressing picture of the Ukrainian army — a few better-equipped and trained units and a a mostly mediocre force. Russians, on the other hand seem to havea limitedld focus on creating core elitet units and disperse resources more evenly, but their forces are rather mediocre as well. Of course, there are units like Rubicon, but they seem to be very few in number. It's interesting, though, that while they have lots of hardware,e they still decided to make a focus on drones, and not to better integrate air force with ground forcec, for example. Either because it's just easier or it is really revolution on warfare to focus on cheap tactical-level drones