A breach created last week in Russian defenses is now being exploited by additional Ukrainian armored brigades, with the goal being a deeper drive into occupied territory. JL
David Axe reports in Forbes:
Ukrainian commanders are rushing more troops into the breach the Ukrainian navy’s 35th and 37th Marine Brigades forced open in Russian lines near Velyka Novosilka in southern Donetsk last week. The latest arrivals are among the meanest. The Ukrainian army’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade rolled through the breach —and arrived in Storozheve, three miles south of Velyka Novosilka, just in time to help the marines defeat a counterattack by the Russian 60th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade. The 93rd’s troopers have won some of the bloodiest battles of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Kyiv’s goal was to open a gap along the Russian line across Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk so reinforcements could exploit (it) toward the Sea of Azov.Ukrainian commanders are rushing more troops into the breach the Ukrainian navy’s 35th and 37th Marine Brigades forced open in Russian lines near the town of Velyka Novosilka in southern Donetsk Oblast last week.
The latest arrivals are among the meanest. Elements of the Ukrainian army’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade rolled through the breach sometime before Monday—and arrived in Storozheve, three miles south of Velyka Novosilka, just in time to help the marines defeat a counterattack by the Russian 60th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade on Monday.
The wreckage of Russian BMP fighting vehicles and T-80 tanks—and the bodies of dead Russians—are reminders of the 93rd Brigade’s fighting prowess, as are the live Russians the Ukrainians captured as the Monday counterattack faltered.
The roughly 3,000-person 93rd Brigade is one of Ukraine’s oldest and biggest combat units. It stood up in 1992 as one of Kyiv’s first post-Soviet brigades.
The 93rd doesn’t have much in the way of Western-made equipment like, say, the new 33rd Mechanized Brigade does. Even the 35th and 37th Marine Brigades mostly ride in a mix of American, British and Turkish armored trucks and French reconnaissance vehicles.
The 93rd’s six tank and infantry battalions by contrast operate upgraded ex-Soviet T-80UK, T-80BVM, T-80BV and T-64BV tanks and BMP-1 and BMP-2 fighting vehicles.
But what the brigade lacks in fancy new hardware it more than makes up for with wartime experience. The 93rd’s troopers have fought in, and won, some of the bloodiest battles of Russia’s 16-month-old wider war on Ukraine.
In late March 2022, the 93rd led one of the first major Ukrainian counterattacks around Kharkiv, the most vulnerable of Ukraine’s major cities. In the process, the 93rd met the Russian 4th Guards Tank Division in the town of Trostianets, 50 miles north of Kharkiv.
The 93rd’s tankers, infantry, artillery gunners and drone-operators mauled the Russian division.
Five months later, in early August, the 93rd launched another counterattack, this time around Mazanivka southwest of Izium. The brigade liberated a few settlements, effectively previewing the wider Ukrainian counteroffensive that began three weeks later.
In early September, a dozen Ukrainian brigades punched through Russian lines around Kharkiv, routing exhausted Russian forces and swiftly liberating a thousand square miles of northeastern Ukraine. The 93rd helped to free Izium then pivoted south toward Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
The ongoing battle for Bakhmut has ground up people and machines on both sides. After dying by the thousands in the ruins of the industrial city for a year, Russian mercenaries finally captured Bakhmut last month. But Ukrainian forces promptly counterattacked along the city’s flanks.
A recent video of a 93rd Brigade BMP-2 firing at Russian forces near Bakhmut implies that the brigade left some battalions in the east as its other battalions redeployed to the south to join the southern counteroffensive.
Those elements of the 93rd join a growing force exploiting the Ukrainian marine corps’ June 5 breach of Russian defenses across the Mokri Yaly River. The Mokri Yaly exploitation corps now includes some or all of at least five brigades in addition to the 93rd: the 25th Air Assault Brigade, the 35th Marine Brigade, the 68th Jaeger Brigade and the 128th and 129th Territorial Defense Brigades.
Ukrainian forces since early last week have been attacking along several axes in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts. Not all of the attacks have been successful. An attempt by the Ukrainian army’s 33rd Mechanized and 47th Assault Brigades to cross a Russian minefield just south of Mala Tokmachka, 40 miles west of Neskuchne, ended in disaster on June 8.
The Ukrainians don’t need every attack to succeed, however. Kyiv’s goal was to open a gap—any gap—somewhere along the Russian front line stretching across Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts so that reinforcements could exploit that gap and race toward the Sea of Azov.
The sector crossing the Mokri Yaly River so far has been the most fruitful for Kyiv. Which helps to explain why Ukrainian commanders continue to reinforce that axis with bigger, heavier and more experienced brigades.
Whether the Mokri Yaly exploitation force can sustain its forward momentum remains to be seen. Having liberated a chain of villages along a 10-mile stretch of the river anchored by Makarivka in the south, the Ukrainian brigades now face denser Russian fortifications garrisoned by the 37th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the 394th Motor Rifle Regiment, the 336th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade and the survivors of the 60th Motor Rifle Brigade.
Ukrainian commanders clearly expect a harder fight south of Storozheve and Makarivka. If the battle-hardened 93rd Brigade can’t punch through the minefields and trenches, the Ukrainians might have a backup plan. The Ukrainian army’s 3rd Tank Brigade is loitering just north of Velyka Novosilka. Holding its hundred or so T-84 and T-72 tanks in reserve, just in case.
0 comments:
Post a Comment