Interesting, didn't know about the security cheif.

Regarding planning I think the Germans had it right. I read a book long time ago by a Swede which was explaining why the German army was so effective on the battlefield in WW2.

I think it said that British soldiers or possibly NCOs got presented with different tactical situations on the battlefield and then given 45 minutes to come up with an optimal solution.

If their answer was not optimal, the would get another 15 minutes to refine it.

Germans in contrast were given 5 minutes to solve the same problems in their training. You could ask, are German super humans or something? How could they be expected to solve the same problems in such short time?

But the key difference was that German military academy did not stress optimal solutions. A decent solution was okay. Their emphasis was entirely on speed of decision making. The one who could make a decent decision in short time would be more awarded than the one who could create an optimal solution but spend more time.

This was a reoccuring theme. German soldiers and officers were given a lot of autonomy to make quick decisions as they saw conditions change on the battlefield.

I think this is the antidote to rigid plans which falls apart. It is being drilled on agility and to respond to situations. Russian military to my knowledge is the complete opposite. It is not agile at all. Soldiers and lower level officers have very little autonomy.

But I guess regardless of your plan, you should get as much intel about the places you are going to attack and train your soldiers on the situations they will likely encounter. Seems like none of that was done here.