Russia’s elite 155th Brigade reportedly refuses to advance on the Ukrainian town of Vuhledar after suffering “catastrophic losses” at the settlement’s mine-laden border crossing.
The armored division appears to have mutinied after orders to drive directly into a heavily fortified minefield dubbed the ‘corridor of death’ for advancing tanks.
Vuhledar has spent months resisting Putin’s suicide tactics and in late January nearly destroyed the brigade, now reinforced with US anti-vehicle mines.
Putin’s elite naval infantry tank brigade – which served in Syria and has been in Ukraine since the start of the war – is a shell of its former self, having lost 130 tanks in three weeks of repeated advances around the city, and today largely made up of inexperienced recruits.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian army said: Kyiv message“The brigade’s leaders and senior officers refuse to proceed with another futile attack, as demanded by their unskilled commanders – to storm well-defended Ukrainian positions with little protection or preparation.”
Deadly intersections in eastern Ukraine have been called the “corridor of death” for advancing tanks
Still shows the moment when a Russian BMP runs over an anti-vehicle mine at the infamous intersection
Russian armored divisions hate driving through hellish crossroads reinforced with US anti-vehicle mines
Russian tank explodes after being hit by a bomb dropped from a drone in Ukraine, in undated footage released in March 2023
Ukrainian troops around the city of Vuhledar have been engaged in “fierce” fighting with Russia in the east for months.
The battered mining town is a hellish landscape of burnt-out buildings and artillery bombardments.
But Ukraine’s use of mines exacerbated Russia’s difficulty over the winter to make a sustained advance.
Video footage from late February showed the moment a Russian 144 Brigade BMP infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed after striking two mines and being hit by an anti-tank weapon.
Nearly the entire 155th Marine Brigade of 5,000 was wiped out near Vuhledar in late January when they drove into minefields from American-supplied remote anti-armour mines.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu nevertheless told the commanders to take the city at all costs.
But the tank division, as well as two “Cossack” units, seem to have revolted after repeated unsuccessful attempts.
Justin Crump, a British military analyst, said of the Russian golf tactic: ‘Repeating the same thing over and over and hoping for a different outcome is a sign of madness.’
While the Institute for the Study of War notes that Ukrainian forces are now likely conducting a “limited tactical withdrawal” from the city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces around Vuhledar remain steadfast in their defense of the city.
A report also noted that the commander of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Khodakovsky, had questioned whether Russian forces would be prepared for a possible Ukrainian counter-attack after being – in his words – “carried away by Bakhmut (and) Vuhledar”.
Ukraine’s use of Soviet-era TM-62 anti-vehicle mines has been effective in defending Ukrainian cities and towns, but the delivery of 7,200 US-supplied anti-armour mines has significantly strengthened defense lines.
The RAAMs can be dispersed from a distance and allow the Ukrainian defenders to lay traps to advance Russian armor from a distance, without individually and manually laying them from the minefields.
In the US RAAM mines, a shell is fired over an open area that scatters a cluster of small mines over a certain area.
The mine is a 155mm howitzer shell containing nine separate mines.
A Ukrainian soldier stands by a mortar on a frontline as the Russian assault on Ukraine continues, near the frontline town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, March 6, 2023
Ukraine is bound by the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines.
This does not prohibit the use of anti-vehicle mines or remote controlled mines.
Russia has never signed the treaty, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, and is under no obligation not to use such mines.
At least the invaders used seven types of anti-personnel mines in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kiev and Sumy.
Human rights watch claimed in late January that Ukraine had used so-called petal mines in and around the Ukrainian city of Izium, contrary to previous reports, the country had not done so.
They noted that Russia had “used these weapons in even greater numbers than Ukraine, on a much larger scale in different parts of the country.”
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