Ukraine: the use of horses in winter

Saturday 24 January 2026

The appearance of horses on the winter battlefields of Ukraine during the Russian invasion has been greeted with disbelief by observers accustomed to satellite imagery, precision munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles. Yet the return of animal traction to modern warfare is neither theatrical nor sentimental. It is a practical response to a campaign fought under severe material constraints, climatic hardship and an increasingly lethal surveillance environment.

Winter in Ukraine imposes a distinctive rhythm on military operations. When autumn rains give way to frost, the ground alternates between treacherous mud and brittle ice. Roads deteriorate rapidly under the weight of tracked vehicles, while fuel becomes more difficult to transport and store. In these conditions the logistical tail often matters more than the spearhead. Horses, long absent from European battlefields, have re-emerged in some Russian units as a means of moving supplies where vehicles struggle to pass or where their use would attract unwelcome attention.

The Russian Armed Forces entered the war with a heavy reliance on motorised logistics and a doctrinal confidence that fuel, spare parts and trained drivers would be readily available. That assumption proved fragile. Ukrainian strikes against depots and transport columns, combined with endemic corruption and poor maintenance, degraded Russia’s vehicle fleet. As winter set in, shortages of serviceable trucks became acute in rear and semi-forward areas. In this context, horses offered a crude but resilient alternative.

Animal transport brings several tactical advantages in winter. Horses require no fuel, produce little infrared signature and can traverse narrow forest tracks or snow-covered fields where vehicles risk immobilisation. A small column of pack horses can deliver ammunition, food or medical supplies to dispersed infantry positions without the noise and visibility of engines. In an environment saturated by drones and loitering munitions, this relative invisibility has genuine military value.

There is also a historical continuity that appeals to Russian military culture. The Red Army relied extensively on horses during the Second World War, not as a romantic anachronism but as a logistical necessity. Millions of horses were mobilised to haul artillery, supplies and wounded soldiers across vast distances. Contemporary Russian commanders, schooled in this history, have been willing to revive methods that appear archaic but have precedent in the country’s military memory.

Yet the use of horses is also an indictment. It reflects not ingenuity alone, but failure at the level of industrial warfare. Modern armies turn to animals when they cannot guarantee fuel supply, vehicle maintenance or air defence coverage for their logistics. Horses compensate for weaknesses elsewhere, but they do not remove them. Their carrying capacity is limited, their speed modest and their vulnerability real. In severe cold, animals require fodder, shelter and veterinary care, all of which place additional burdens on an already strained system.

From the Ukrainian perspective, the sight of Russian troops using horses has carried a powerful symbolic charge. It reinforces a narrative of an invading force reduced to improvisation, fighting a twentieth century war with nineteenth century tools. Ukrainian forces have not generally relied on horses, not because they are inherently inferior, but because Ukraine has prioritised decentralised motorised logistics, supported by Western assistance and protected, albeit imperfectly, by air defence. Where Ukraine has improvised, it has done so with civilian vehicles, drones and digital coordination rather than animal traction.

The humanitarian dimension should not be overlooked. Horses suffer in war as surely as soldiers and civilians. They are exposed to shelling, extreme cold and exhaustion, with limited means of evacuation or treatment. Their presence on the battlefield underscores the broader regression that prolonged, attritional war brings, drawing not only people but animals into its machinery.

In strategic terms, the winter use of horses reveals the uneven modernity of the Russian war effort. Russia fields hypersonic missiles and advanced electronic warfare systems, yet struggles to supply frontline units with basic necessities. This contrast is not accidental. It is the product of a state that invests heavily in prestige weapons while neglecting the mundane but decisive business of logistics.

As the war grinds on, the horse stands as an unsettling emblem of endurance and decay. It testifies to the adaptability of soldiers under pressure, but also to the erosion of a military system that has failed to match its ambitions with sustainable capability. In the frozen fields and forests of Ukraine, the presence of horses is less a curiosity than a quiet commentary on the true costs and contradictions of Russia’s invasion.