Russia’s generals have spent years rehearsing hypothetical wars against NATO and its partners through secret computer simulations, according to an investigation released on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
The Russian investigative organization Dossier Center found evidence that the country’s military leadership began seriously preparing for possible conflict with NATO no later than 2017.
The simulations take place at the Russian General Staff’s Military Academy on the outskirts of Moscow, where an underground War Games Center is designed to resemble a military command post.
About 50 senior officers and generals can participate in a session, assuming the roles of commanders responsible for aviation, naval forces, submarines, intelligence, air defenses and other military branches.
Computers calculate casualties, troop movements and the depth of advances into enemy defenses while officers issue orders and watch their decisions play out on a large digital map covering most of the wall.
The exercises, officially called command-staff war games, can last from several hours to several days. Simulations can involve operations ranging from amphibious landings and submarine maneuvers to responses against enemy aircraft.
Gotland appears in 2017 simulation
In March 2017, Russian generals and senior military academy students participated in a multiday strategic simulation.
Although Russia’s Defense Ministry provided few details about the scenario, Dossier Center analyzed a photograph published by the academy. A reflection in glass doors reportedly revealed a map displayed on the screen behind the participants.
The map showed the Baltic Sea and included a marked site near Gotland, a strategically important Swedish island.
It was titled “Strategic Deterrence,” a Russian military term covering measures intended to prevent an attack by demonstrating the ability to inflict unacceptable damage on an opponent.
Gotland was demilitarized in 2005, but Sweden decided a decade later to restore a permanent military presence on the island amid concerns about Russia’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy.
More than 900 officers simulate eastern war
Another war game held at the academy in 2018 involved more than 900 officers and appeared to simulate a conflict with US and Japanese forces, according to the investigation.
Participants controlled approximately 320,000 virtual troops assigned to Russia’s Eastern Military District and Pacific Fleet.
Although Russian military television blurred many of the maps shown in its report, investigators found unblurred footage displaying parts of Japan’s Hokkaido and Aomori prefectures.
The simulation also included a three-dimensional model of a US Boeing E-3 Sentry reconnaissance aircraft carrying NATO markings.
Aomori hosts the joint US-Japanese Misawa Air Base. More than 50,000 US troops were stationed in Japan around the period when the simulation took place.
Earlier leaked Russian military documents reportedly contained a list of 160 potential targets in Japan and South Korea, including roads, bridges and industrial plants.
Dossier Center concluded that NATO and its regional partners were likely represented as the opposing “red team” in the simulations, posing hypothetical threats to Russia from both west and east.
The investigators cautioned, however, that the existence of a war-game scenario does not automatically prove Russia intends to launch an actual war against the simulated opponent.
Russian simulations fail to predict Ukraine war
By 2021, command-staff war games had become a central element of Russian military planning.
Commanders in the Southern Military District, which would play a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were instructed to conduct such exercises every month throughout that year.
More than 1,000 participants took part in one major game in March 2021, as Russia began deploying thousands of troops and military vehicles near Ukraine’s borders.
Despite the extensive preparations, investigators concluded that Russian commanders apparently failed to model the invasion of Ukraine accurately.
“Any war departs from the plan from the first shot,” military analyst David Sharp told Dossier Center.
Sharp said war games can provide valuable results only when they are based on accurate assessments of both sides’ capabilities. In authoritarian systems, however, commanders may avoid considering the worst scenarios because leaders expect positive reports, he added.
Russia’s military leadership was also heavily influenced by its experience in Syria, where Moscow relied extensively on aviation and airstrikes.
Russian commanders attempted to use similar tactics after launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The approach largely failed because Russia could not suppress Ukraine’s dense air defense network at the beginning of the invasion.
Moscow changes simulations after failed blitzkrieg
After Russia’s initial attempt to seize Kyiv and rapidly overthrow Ukraine’s government failed, the General Staff organized two major war games in spring 2022.
One exercise involved 1,300 participants from 15 military schools. A second simulation divided officers and generals into two opposing combined-arms armies.
The scenarios were adjusted to reflect conditions Russian troops had encountered in Ukraine, including the absence of a continuous front line, special operations activity and resistance from cities behind Russian lines that Moscow had failed to capture.
By the end of 2022, lessons from Russia’s first months of the full-scale invasion had been incorporated into its military simulations, according to Dossier Center.
The underground center reportedly operates about 250 training systems and can run simulations involving real Russian military formations. Its computers allow officers to fight either artificial intelligence or other teams connected through a protected internal network.
Dossier Center also found Russian Defense Ministry publications indicating that the highest-level scenarios may be developed on the orders of the defense minister, the General Staff chief or under what the documents described as “plans of the president of Russia.”