A Russian Tank Division Is Heading North To Help The Russians Break Out Of Pokrovsk
The 90th Tank Division is on the move, but without its tanks
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
Half a year after capturing the ruins of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, the Russian Center Group of Forces is trying to break free of Pokrovsk and neighboring Myrnohrad—and march on the twin cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, 40 km to the north.
They’ve brought in reinforcements to help make it possible. The Russian army’s 90th Tank Division, which until recently was fighting in southeast Ukraine, has shifted at least some of its regiments 75 km to the northeast to bolster the units already deployed in and around Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, including the powerful—and growing—76th Air Assault Division.
Can Ukrainian troops kill enough Russian troops fast enough to blunt the effect of these reinforcements? The answer to that question will shape the eastern front as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 51st month.
The 90th Tank Division didn’t necessarily bring the equipment that made it famous: its tanks. Instead, the division is, like other Russian formation, fighting on foot. Russian assaults around Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad are “just infantry,” Lt. Col. Yevhen Bespalov, the commander of Ukraine’s 38th Marine Brigade, told Rob Lee, an American analyst who has teamed up with Ukrainian marine corps drone operator Kriegsforscher to form a new analysis group, Two Marines.
But the lack of heavy equipment isn't necessary a problem for the Russians. Armored vehicles struggle to cross the wide, drone-patrolled and mine-infested gray zone that threads 1,200 km between free and occupied Ukraine.
The Russians decided more than a year ago to park most of their tanks and other combat vehicles—and attack with small groups of infantry infiltrators who stand a better chance of slipping past the drones, and who can slowly but steadily sow chaos among Ukrainian defenders.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.