Dozens Of Russians Attacked Vuhledar On Dirtbikes. Ukraine Annihilated Them

The attack was met with drones, rockets, artillery, mines and infantry. 

It was a bloodbath for the Russians. JL

David Axe reports in Forbes:

Struggling to acquire enough new armored vehicles to replace the roughly 16,000 vehicles it has lost in Ukraine, the Russian military got desperate and began equipping assault troops with inexpensive dirt bikes. The theory is that soldiers on fast-moving dirt bikes might outrace thousands of Ukrainian drones. On June 28, a large group of assault bikers attacked the Ukrainian 72nd Mechanized Brigade in Vuhledar. The Ukrainians struck the Russians, which included T-80 tanks, other armor, with drones missiles, artillery and mines. The 72nd Brigade knocked out 16 tanks, 34 fighting vehicles and 19 bikes—and killed or badly wounded more than 800 Russian troops.

Struggling to acquire enough new armored vehicles to replace the roughly 16,000 vehicles it has lost in Ukraine, the Russian military got desperate this spring. It began equipping assault troops with inexpensive dirt bikes.

 

The theory is that soldiers on fast-moving dirt bikes might outrace the thousands of tiny Ukrainian drones that swarm over the 700-mile front line every day of Russia’s 28-month wider war on Ukraine.

Sometimes, it works. While Russia’s northern offensive, which kicked off on May 9, quickly ground to a halt in the town of Vovchansk, a few miles south of the Russia-Ukraine border, the nearly 500,000-person Russian force in Ukraine has managed to advance a few miles in a couple of sectors in recent weeks.

Usually, however, the bike assaults don’t work—a result that wouldn’t surprise the various European armies that experimented with assault motorcycles during and right after World War I.

And sometimes, the bike assaults turn into bloodbaths for the Russians. On June 28, a large group of assault bikers—dozens, it seems—attacked the Ukrainian army’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade in Vuhledar, in southern Ukraine.

According to Russian correspondent Alexander Sladkov, the goal was to get around the Ukrainian position in order to cut it off. “A blow to the Ukrainians in the back, or rather from the rear, is brewing there,” Sladkov wrote before the attack.

 

It wasn’t to be. The Ukrainians struck the Russian column, which also included T-80 tanks and other armored vehicles, with drones and—it seems—missiles and artillery. Buried mines may have added to the destruction.

When the smoke cleared, the Russian force was in ruins. The 72nd Mechanized Brigade claimed it knocked out 16 tanks, 34 fighting vehicles and 19 bikes—and killed or badly wounded more than 800 Russian troops.

Russian commanders “deliberately threw manpower under the Ukrainian combine of death without any chance of survival,” Ukrainian war correspondent Yuriy Butusov reported.

Tragically for the Russians, the Vuhledar bike assault wasn’t the only failed bike assault in late June or early July. On Monday, analyst Andrew Perpetua tallied 25 destroyed Russian motorcycles from recent battles.