Russian Marines Near Pokrovsk Are Doing 'What They Do Best'—Dying by the Dozen

The 155th Naval Infantry Brigade has been destroyed and rebuilt many times

The Russian navy’s notorious 155th Naval Infantry Brigade has rushed from Sumy Oblast in northern Ukraine to Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine—and joined the Russian military’s desperate effort to shore up its collapsing salient northeast of the fortress city of Pokrovsk.

The results, so far, have been predictably tragic for one of the most casualty-prone Russian formations in the 43-month wider war on Ukraine. “The 155th were transferred to the Pokrovsk area and instantly started doing what they do best: die,” American analyst Andrew Perpetua quipped.

Attacking in armored vehicles along dangerously exposed roads just east of Pokrovsk on the evening of Aug. 28, the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade was immediately spotted from the air by the Ukrainian state security service’s Ivan Franko Group.

The group attacked with its own explosive first-person-view drones—and also called in rockets from nearby High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. The combined firepower “inflicted devastating losses on the enemy’s assault armored group, which ultimately could not reach the forward positions of the 79th [Air Assault] Brigade and was completely defeated,” the group reported.

Ivan Franko counted five destroyed vehicles and two abandoned ones. “The enemy’s manpower losses as a result of the complex strike of FPV and HIMARS amounted to 50 to 100 men,” the group claimed.