Russia using new mass assault tactics on battlefield, says Ukraine
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Ukrainian servicemen firing a Bohdana self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
KYIV – Russian forces are trying out a new tactic of larger-scale assaults involving several hundred troops, according to Ukraine’s military, as Kyiv girds for a new offensive push from its bigger adversary more than three years into a full-scale war.
The change signals a possible break with the tactics that Russia has leant on for more than two years, sending in tiny groups of infantry to seep slowly through Ukrainian lines.
A post from the Ukrainian military’s southern command on April 17 showed video footage of what it said was a Russian attack involving 320 men and 40 armoured vehicles in the vicinity of several villages on the southern front line in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
The post said the attack took place on the evening of April 16 and lasted approximately 2½ hours before it was beaten back, adding that heavy losses were inflicted on the Russians.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield claims.
Russia’s tactic of attacking with small, lightly armed infantry units was in itself an evolution from how Moscow fought early in the war, when its vast armoured columns found themselves taking huge losses from nimble Ukrainian units.
The rise of mass drone warfare, which can hit targets far more precisely than mortars or artillery, has also made life much more difficult for armoured vehicles.
“Approximately five to seven men would prepare for these assaults, make a so-called corridor with electronic warfare (anti-drone) equipment and tried to go as far as possible with these groups of infantry,” Mr Vladyslav Voloshyn, a Ukrainian military spokesperson, said of Russia’s tactics in recent months.
According to Mr Voloshyn, there would be around ten such small attacks on a typical day on this part of the Zaporizhzhia front line.
He said that as well as the April 16 mass assault, the Russians had carried out a similar large attack on April 13.
“Entire assault platoons came forward, which then tried to disperse into assault groups. Each assault group carried out its task, trying to capture a position of ours,” he said.
Brigadier-General Oleksandr Pivnenko, the commander of Ukraine’s National Guard, said on April 17 that one of his brigades had repelled a large assault, involving armoured vehicles and hundreds of infantrymen, on a different part of the front line near the embattled eastern town of Pokrovsk. REUTERS
