Sean Rayment served as a Captain in the Parachute Regiment in the late 1980s. As a defence correspondent, he has reported on wars in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and Africa
Is the tank still the ‘king of the battlefield’? The sight of burnt out Russian vehicles littering the highways outside of Kyiv has led some to question their effectiveness in modern-day warfare. But don’t be deceived: the death of the tank has been greatly exaggerated. There is a reason, after all, why Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is pleading
There is a useful military adage often used by generals in times of war: no plan survives contact with the enemy. Vladimir Putin’s plan, it now appears, didn’t even survive contact with his own troops. Russia’s leader has combined a major strategic miscalculation with tactical stupidity on a scale unprecedented in recent times. Four weeks
