The 155th Mechanized Brigade has Leopard 2 tanks and Caesar howitzers. Now it needs drones and drone jammers.
Nov 30, 2024
One of the Ukrainian army’s newest brigades has arrived in Ukraine after nearly three months training in Poland and France. The 155th Mechanized Brigade is arguably the best—and certainly the most heavily-armed—of the dozen or so new brigades the Ukrainian armed forces have formed in recent months.
But that doesn’t mean the 155th Mechanized Brigade is ready for combat. It may be missing critical equipment.
After an initial round of expansion following Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian ground forces—the army, air assault forces, marine corps, national guard and territorials—could deploy a hundred brigades, each with around 2,000 people.
It was one of the biggest active land forces in the world—and it wasn’t enough. Outnumbered and outgunned by the Russian military and overstretched along the 800-mile front line of the wider war, the best Ukrainian brigades never got a chance to disengage for rest and maintenance.
The elite 47th Mechanized Brigade, the main user of Ukraine’s American-made armored vehicles, was in bloody combat for 15 months before it finally rotated off the front line this fall—but even this belated break came to an abrupt end when Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk Oblast in western Russia drew the brigade back into action.
Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine’s southern Donetsk Oblast, the 72nd Mechanized Brigade spent two years defending the fortress town of Vuhledar. Ground down and desperate for relief that never arrived, the brigade finally retreated in September, surrendering a key sector to the attacking Russians.
Ukraine’s war-weary brigades need help. Four new army brigades that formed in late 2023 offered only partial relief. Starting this spring, the army stood up another seven brigades. Owing to a shortage of heavy armored vehicles, most of the new units were infantry brigades at first—and only later gained vehicles … and new designations.
The 155th Mechanized Brigade formed in May. But it mostly existed on paper until September, when 2,300 Ukrainian soldiers—the bulk of the new brigade—flew to France and began training alongside 1,500 French army instructors. At the same time, a few hundred soldiers from the 155th Mechanized Brigade’s tank battalion arrived in Poland to train with the Polish army.
The French outfitted the 155th Mechanized Brigade with Caesar self-propelled howitzers, AMX-10RC reconnaissance vehicles and heavy mortars. The Poles handed over 31 Leopard 2A4 tanks apparently drawn from Spanish surplus stocks.
The 155th Mechanized Brigade isn’t the best-equipped Ukrainian brigade, but it’s in the top tier. And it should be able to trade places with the 47th Mechanized Brigade or some other exhausted heavy brigade. The 155th Mechanized Brigade “is one of the important operational reserves of our country,” commented Yuriy Butusov, the famed Ukrainian war correspondent.
But owing to funding shortfalls in Kyiv, the brigade lacks drones and anti-drone radio jammers, according to Butusov. That’s a problem. Small drones are the most important surveillance and attack assets on both sides of the wider war.
As badly as older Ukrainian brigades need relief, it would be military malpractice for the 155th Mechanized Brigade to roll into combat without drones or defenses against drones. Butusov is raising money to buy the missing equipment, so the 155th Mechanized Brigade may soon be fully equipped and ready for action.
But the shortage, however temporary, is ominous. In the 33 months since the Russians attacked, Ukraine has massively expanded production of drones and jammers. But just as the addition of dozens of new brigades hasn’t met Ukraine’s front-line needs, the million or more drones the country builds every year also aren’t enough.
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Sources:
1. Militaryland
3. NPR
Many thumbs in Europe and Washington are stuck deeply inside their owners’ anuses, doing too little, as usual.
I invite mafia land to leave Ukraine alone and to invade the rest of Europe, in particular Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, and Switzerland. All of them put together are not worth even one Ukrainian city.
You forgot Prussia. 😇
Prussia has been the second-largest donor. 😉
To ruSSia? 🤣
I suppose in some ways, yes.