15 Russian Air Assault Battalions Marched To Pokrovsk. Ukrainian Drones And Rockets Just Wiped Out One Of Them.
The Russian 76th Guards Air Assault Division is getting blasted to bits on open terrain around Pokrovsk.
After suffering heavy casualties capturing most of Pokrovsk and neighboring Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast in late November, the Russian Center Group of Forces called in its main reserve—the powerful 76th Guard Air Assault Division.
Well, once powerful. Redeployed just south of Pokrovsk, the 76th GAAD has been trying to force the road from Pokrovsk’s industrial northern outskirts to the town of Hryshyne, a few miles to the northwest.
But the division has been attacking in large groups of lightly equipped troops often riding in unprotected all-terrain vehicles and other unarmored transports. Where just a couple of months ago the winter fog might’ve obscured these assault groups from drones operated by the Ukrainian 7th Rapid Reaction Corps and 1st Azov Corps, the Ukrainians are deploying more and more drones with thermal cameras.
Through those cameras, ATVs and their riders appear as bright white spots blazing like beacons through any fog. Especially on a snowy cold landscape.
On or just before Friday, the 76th GAAD mobilized a battalion force with more than 30 vehicles—“motorcycles, buggies, trucks,” according to the 7th Rapid Reaction Corps—and rolled toward Hryshyne.
