Russian motorcycle assault tactics have spread to the southern front of Russia’s 40-month wider war on Ukraine. The result in the south is the same as in the east. A lot of Russia’s southern bike troops are getting killed by Ukrainian mines, drones and artillery.
But as in the east, the few southern bikers who survive can make dangerous dents in Ukrainian lines. The bike attacks are almost always fatal for the troops who attempt them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work.
Ukrainian commanders should think twice before copying the method, however. The Russians can afford to lose troops. The Ukrainians can’t.
The Ukrainian armed forces’ southern task force claimed the Russians attacked “in the Malynivka area” on Friday. But analysts geolocated the site of the attack in Nesteryanka, 40 miles to the east in the same oblast.
In any event, the attack failed as around a dozen bike troops ran over mines, got plinked by drones or blasted by artillery. “Their plan was doomed to failure,” the Ukrainian southern task force stated. “Our soldiers met the motorcycle assaults with dense fire, and as a result, all the enemy equipment burned down! Not a single occupier passed!”
The Ukrainian defenders, possibly from the 65th Mechanized Brigade, were lucky. The thinking behind the Russian bike attacks is perverse, but not insane. “It involves heavy losses, but it still has certain results,” the Ukrainian Peaky Blinders drone unit explained.
“For example, 20 motorcycles are going, some of them are destroyed by artillery, some by drones, someone is eliminated by mining and our infantry will get someone in a gun battle. But several motorcycles still have a chance to jump into the landing.”
It only takes a few infiltrating Russian troops to create a lodgement inside Ukrainian lines—one that can grow into a larger breach. In deploying large numbers of bike troops, Russian commanders are playing the odds—and betting that a few will eventually ride unscathed past Ukrainian mines, drones and artillery.
“Behind them is the same group, then more and more,” Peaky Blinders warned. The Friday bike attack in Zaporizhzhia may have failed, but the next one might not.
Abundant manpower
This costly assault method only works for the Kremlin because it has manpower in abundance. Motivated by generous enlistment bonuses and apparently believing Russia is winning the wider war, 30,000 fresh troops sign up for Russia’s war effort every month. That’s slightly more troops than Russia loses every month in Ukraine. Even the “suicidal bike attacks” haven’t tipped Russia’s manpower balance into a monthly deficit.
But Ukraine doesn’t have a durable manpower surplus. So it’s worth questioning the decision by one elite Ukrainian unit to form its own motorcycle assault group. The 425th Separate Assault Regiment organized its bike company, the first in the Ukrainian armed forces, last month.
“During the training, the fighters spent hundreds of hours behind the wheel and practiced shooting in motion, firing thousands of rounds,” the regiment announced. “As a result, we have a modern cavalry whose main task is to rapidly break into enemy positions, carry out assault actions and quickly change the direction of strike.”
But can the regiment afford to lose almost all the bike troops it sends into battle? And will the Ukrainian people accept the loss of life?
The Russians are determined to advance north in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. “Russian troops conduct six to seven attacks daily in the direction of Malynivka,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted. One of these attacks may eventually succeed—and open a gap in Ukrainian lines that Russian reinforcements can exploit.
Even if the effort succeeds, it will come at the cost of most of the bike troops carrying out the initial assaults. “The majority of these bikers are suicidal,” Peaky Blinders observed. “But apparently they are completely satisfied with it.”
Ukrainians might not be so satisfied dying like that.
