Ukraine Dispatch 5: Ukraine’s New Directorate of Assault Units – Adaptation Under Fire

Welcome to my Ukraine Dispatches, updates from my ongoing visit to Ukraine. This is my fifth dispatch.

My first dispatch, which covered Ukrainian military training as well as a certain incident with a snake, is available to read at this link. My second one is available here. My third dispatch, an interview with Nataliie Lutsenko, is available at this link. The fourth dispatch is here.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, the most important characteristic that Ukraine and Russia have demonstrated and improved has been their ability to learn and adapt. Both nations have learned to learn better over the past three and a half years.

This is an interactive competition where each side learns based on the reactions of their adversary. Using what they have learned, they develop and implement solutions to improve their effectiveness against that enemy. These solutions might be intellectual, such as new tactics and doctrine. They might also be organisational, with new organisations such as the Unmanned Systems Force.

This process, which I have described as The Adaptation Battle, occurs at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Adaptation also occurs at multiple levels within military institutions. It occurs before and during wars, and as I wrote in this recent article, it occurs in the short period between peace and war. Adaptation also happens in corporate organisations that are lined to military institutions. Finally, adaptation takes place within enemy organisations as well as within allies.

Adaptation was at the front of my mind during my time in southern Ukraine this week, when I visited Ukrainian units in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and eastern Ukraine. And the key organisation I was privileged to visit was the newly established organisation known as the Directorate of Assault Units.

In this update, I will cover the rationale for the establishment of this new organisation, its commander, as well as its structure and concept of operations.

Why the Directorate of Assault Units?

This new command, which may in the near future be renamed the Command of Assault Troops, was established in August 2025 by the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, General Syrskyi. It is an organisational adaptation that brings together multiple assault regiments and brigades under a