The Ukrainian M-2 Bradley Force Has Peaked at Six Battalions
It's decreasingly likely more M-2s are coming as the second Trump term looms
For a year or so after receiving the first surplus M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles from the United States, the Ukrainian armed forces assigned the 33-ton, 10-person IFVs to just one unit, the army’s elite 47th Mechanized Brigade.
Now there are no fewer than four units riding in M-2s, which are heavily armed with 25-millimeter auto-cannons and anti-tank missiles and well-protected with layers of add-on explosive reactive armor.
A battalion of the 95th Air Assault Brigade apparently also has M-2s—31 of them, if it’s adhering to the standard table of organization and equipment. We know this because the brigade, which has been fighting in the 250-square-mile salient Ukrainian troops carved out of Kursk Oblast in western Russia back in August, revealed it on Instagram.
“It was a day to remember,” the brigade posted on Nov. 27. “The task: to stop the enemy column. Our guys on the Bradley without hesitation went to meet the enemy. One enemy APC turned into a charred body, another was knocked out.”
This is good news for the 95th Air Assault Brigade. It’s possible Ukraine’s Bradley inventory is spread thin, however. In several shipments through this summer, the U.S. Defense Department shipped to Ukraine more than 300 M-2s. In 33 months of hard fighting since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, the Ukrainians have lost at least 64 M-2s—six of them captured fairly intact. Others have been damaged.
It’s possible the Ukrainian Bradley inventory is down to a little more than 200 vehicles. Enough for at most six battalions, given that some vehicles belong to training units.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade has three M-2 battalions with a total complement of 93 vehicles at full strength. The 100th Mechanized Brigade has at least one M-2 battalion. The 425th Assault Battalion also rides in M-2s. Add the 95th Air Assault Brigade’s M-2s and that’s … six battalions.
The Bradley may be Ukraine’s best IFV, so it makes sense for Ukrainian planners to assign the vehicle to as many units as possible. But it’s clear there are very few M-2s in reserve to replace combat losses. And there’s almost no chance Ukraine could form a seventh Bradley battalion.
Unless, of course, the United States donates more M-2s. The administration of U.S. president Joe Biden still has billions of dollars in aid authority and could ship additional Bradleys before president-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
But the Biden administration has been prioritizing ammunition over vehicles in its final few aid shipments. Given how long it can take to select, refurbish and transport an old IFV that may have been in storage for decades, it’s vanishingly unlikely more M-2s are coming under Biden.
And they’re equally unlikely to come under Trump. A convicted felon with a expressed affinity for dictators, Trump plans to stack his cabinet with slavishly loyal conspiracy theorists, ex-criminals and unabashed allies of foreign autocrats. In what would amount to a generous favor to Russia, Trump has threatened to end U.S. aid to Ukraine.
All that is to say, those six Ukrainian M-2 battalions may never have more vehicles than they have now.
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