The Ukrainian army’s elite 92nd Assault Brigade thwarted a potentially powerful Russian assault along Ukraine’s northern border with Russia last week—and knocked out an entire company of increasingly rare armored vehicles in the process.
The successful defense by one of the Ukrainian army’s best brigades comes amid discontent in another elite Ukrainian brigade holding the line along the same stretch of the 1,100-kilometer front line. Ukrainian forces excel on the defense, but some critics insist the Ukrainians shouldn’t be attacking while they’re struggling to fully staff their infantry battalions.
Elite brigades decimate Russian forces with mines and drones
On or just before Thursday, the 92nd Assault Brigade’s drones detected a large Russian force on the move outside the village of Zhuravlyovka, in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, just opposite the border with Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast.
“The enemy, using armored vehicles [and] a significant number of personnel on motorcycles and [all-terrain vehicles], decided to stage another meat assault,” the brigade, which began the war as a vehicle-heavy mechanized brigade but reorganized to emphasize its infantry firepower, reported on social media.
The 92nd Assault Brigade laid waste to the gathering Russian forces. “The equipment and personnel were blown up by mines, hit by artillery, and hotly burned by drones of various types,” the brigade claimed.
Analysts counted around 10 knocked-out BMP fighting vehicles and tanks, which is a lot of BMPs and tanks at this late stage of the wider war.
After losing more than 17,000 armored vehicles and other heavy equipment in Ukraine—far more than it can immediately replace—the Kremlin is equipping more and more regiments with civilian vehicles or sending them into battle on foot.
The assault that the 92nd Assault Brigade broke up on Thursday may be the same assault that the adjacent 58th Motorized Brigade also intercepted in Belgorod around the same time.
The 58th Motorized Brigade reported heavy Russian losses: a tank, eight infantry fighting vehicles, two motorcycles, two ATVs, and a car were destroyed; an infantry fighting vehicle and four ATVs were damaged.
“Leaving a pile of burned scrap metal in the fields, the invaders rolled back to lick their wounds,” the 58th Motorized Brigade crowed. “Of course, except for those who became victims of the adventurism of their own command.”
“Clueless leadership”: Ukrainian commander’s public criticism exposes strategic tensions in Kursk incursion
But Ukrainian commanders may also be guilty of adventurism along this sector of the front. Citing “clueless leaders” ordering troops to execute “stupid tasks,” Oleksandr Shyrshyn—a battalion commander with the 47th Mechanized Brigade—practically begged for his chain of command to relieve him of duty in a Friday post on social media.
“I haven’t received any more stupid tasks than in the current direction,” Shyrshyn wrote.
In August, Ukrainian brigades invaded Russia’s Kursk Oblast, just north of Belgorod, and captured a 650-square-kilometer salient around the town of Sudzha.
But the Ukrainians never secured their supply lines.
In February, an elite Russian drone team deployed to the Kursk incursion—and swiftly severed the only main supply route between Sudzha and the border with Ukraine, destroying hundreds of Ukrainian vehicles in the process.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade was in the thick of that fighting and, since retreating back to Ukraine in early March, has been supporting Ukrainian forces’ more limited raids into its Kursk incursion—raids that risk heavy Ukrainian casualties for fleeting territorial gains.
Ukraine is back in Kursk – but this time, it’s blowing bridges first
At the same time, units such as the 92nd Assault Brigade and 58th Motorized Brigade are fighting to hold back Russian forces trying to advance into Kharkiv.
“I’ll tell you the details sometime, but the loss of people has dulled my mind, trembling before the clueless generalship leads to nothing but failures,” Shyrshyn wrote. “All they are capable of is reprimands, investigations, imposition of penalties. Everyone is going to Hell. Political games and assessment of the real state of affairs do not correspond to either reality or possibilities. They played around.”
Defense vs. offense: Analysts urge caution with Ukraine’s limited resources
Joni Askola, an Estonian analyst, has urged Ukrainian commanders to be extremely careful with their limited resources—and focus on defending, for now.
While occasional local counterattacks may be appropriate for depleted Ukrainian brigades, “a successful large counteroffensive would require not only good planning and substantial resources but also a technological leap or other advantage to surprise Russia,” Askola said.
That the 92nd Assault Brigade and 58th Motorized Brigade have been able to badly bleed Russian regiments in Belgorod, at minimal risk to their own battalions, seems to underscore Askola’s point—and may also corroborate 47th Mechanized Brigade officer Shyrshyn’s point, too.
Cautious Ukrainian commanders can still win—by waiting for the Russians to break cover and attack, and then smashing them with artillery, mines and drones.