Ukraine's Bad-Luck 100th Mechanized Brigade Made a Mad Dash Into the Ruins of Toretsk—And Got Massacred
The brigade lost two M-2 Bradleys and a Marder fighting vehicle as well as potentially dozens of troops
On May 8, the Ukrainian army’s 100th Mechanized Brigade mobilized a dozen vehicles and as many as 100 infantry and made a mad dash toward central Toretsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
The mechanized counterattack, the latest in a back-and-forth series of assaults by both sides in Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine, was poorly planned, ambivalently supported—and a bloody disaster for the bad-luck 100th Mechanized Brigade. (See the video below.)
At least six vehicles were destroyed, including two precious M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and a Marder IFV. It’s possible dozens of soldiers were killed or injured—losses the manpower-poor Ukrainian armed forces can’t afford.
Ukrainian brigades are defending along most of the 700-mile front line; Russian regiments are attacking. So it’s usually the Russians who attempt some mechanized assault under less-than-optimal conditions—and get massacred. But the ruins of Toretsk have been a gray zone for months: neither side can claim full control.
In attempting to seize the momentum in the destroyed city, the 100th Mechanized Brigade—one of the Ukrainian army’s newer brigades—got sloppy. Just a year after getting hastily shoved into the collapsing Ukrainian line west of the ruins of Avdiivka, the 100th Mechanized Brigade found itself in another desperate fight. But this time, it was a fight of the Ukrainians’ own choosing.
Mass assault
The Deep State analysis group analyzed the debacle. “Conclusions must be drawn,” the group wrote.
Deep State criticized “the use of a large number of vehicles, which moved at high speed in a simple column in open terrain, which made it possible to arrange a safari for the enemy’s FPV drones.”
Small first-person-view drones are everywhere all the time along the front line. It’s possible to jam the drones or suppress their operators with drones and artillery, but the 100th Mechanized Brigade did neither.
Deep State pointed to a “lack of a normal calculation of the necessary resources of the operation, namely: artillery, which did not have the necessary number of shots to support the maneuvers of equipment and infantry. [Also] the lack of the necessary number of drones for both work by dumping and defeating FPV drones.”
The Russian drones crews operated with impunity, “which had a huge impact on the maneuvers of the main forces,” Deep State noted.
Ultimately, the 100th Mechanized Brigade’s costly failure was the consequence of a “lack of specifically planned steps in case of unforeseen circumstances (roughly speaking, plan B), which led to a chaotic situation and the inability to assess the situation around.”
As costly as the failed attack was in terms of equipment and lives, it was equally costly in morale terms. “Tomorrow, the fighters who saw and survived this will have to go into battle again,” Deep State explained, “but the question is—with what motivation?”
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