17 Russian MT-LBs and 100 infantry attacked Vovchansk; Carnage ensued

A week after Ukrainian commandos cleared the last few Russian soldiers hunkered down at the besieged PJSC Volchański chemical plant in Vovchansk, in northern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Russians were seeking revenge.

It ended in disaster – for the Russians. By attacking Ukrainian positions northwest of the 30-building chemical campus, the equivalent of half a Russian battalion – 17 MT-LB armored tractors, three tanks and no less than 100 infantrymen – hit a wall of Ukrainian firepower.

The Ukrainian Army’s 57th Motorized Brigade fired upon a Russian assault group using airborne drones that dropped grenades – most likely among other weapons. When the smoke cleared, 16 MT-LBs and a tank lay destroyed. There were literally piles of dead and massacred Russians lying around the smoldering hulls. “Now the guys are finishing off the remaining infantry,” reports one of the Ukrainian bloggers.

It’s not hard to understand what happened. Russian infantry rode into the battle in 13-ton MT-LB vehicles, with about 10 men per vehicle – apparently calculating that the threat from drones from above was less serious than the threat from mines from below. This was not an entirely unreasonable assumption: the obsolete, lightly armored MT-LBs are notoriously prone to catching fire when hit by mines from below.

However, the Russians apparently underestimated how much damage the grenade-dropping drones of the 57th Motorized Brigade could inflict on massed mechanized forces. Ukrainians have been steadily improving their drone-dropped munitions, adding more sensitive fuses and more powerful explosives. So infantry on the summit, heading toward the chemical plants, might have been quite safe from mines, but were disastrously vulnerable to drone attacks.

This poses a problem for the broader Russian military, which is withdrawing more 1970s-era MT-LB vehicles from long-term storage to replace some of the thousands of newer and heavier BMP combat vehicles that the Russians have lost during 31 months of heavy fighting in Ukraine. Infantry attached to these MT-LB units will face the same impossible choice: risk mine explosions while riding inside old tractors – or risk drone attacks while driving at the top their.

This is of course not just a Russian problem, as the Ukrainian armed forces are also remanufacturing old MT-LBs to replace lost newer and heavier vehicles.

But Ukrainians defend in more sectors than they attack. The Russians attack in more sectors than they defend. The defending Ukrainians can leave their MT-LBs and dig in. Attacking Russians often have no choice but to roll in in their lethal vehicles and try to force their way through the disputed terrain to reach Ukrainian lines.

Until the dynamics of the war change and the Ukrainians attack more broadly along the 700-mile front line, Ukrainian troops will – for the most part – be able to wait until Russian troops come to them. Increasingly, the Russians will attack on old, armored tractors, easy targets for airborne drones.

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