Russian Marines Rushed to Save the Pokrovsk Offensive—HIMARS Had Other Ideas
Russian reinforcements rolling toward Pokrovsk made a fatal mistake: they traveled in armored vehicles—and within range of Ukraine’s HIMARS
Desperate to staunch the bloodletting around Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, the Kremlin rushed in reinforcements. A lot of them.
But those reinforcements—the best of Russia’s available naval infantry and airborne forces—are already suffering heavy casualties in a sector they clearly do not understand. Attacking in armored vehicles along drone-patrolled roads just east of Pokrovsk on the evening of Aug. 28, the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade was immediately spotted from the air by the Ukrainian state security service’s Ivan Franko Group.
The Ivan Franko 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 Ivan Franko Group reported.
The group 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. See the official video below.
Since the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is recruited from the best survivors of other units, each time it is reformed it becomes better. Despite that, losing 100 men and a couple of armored units is only a minor loss to the Brigade. Still, Russian losses make me happy.
They received everything they had coming to them.