Soon after the front line in southern Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast settled along the natural barrier that is the wide Dnipro River, back in late 2022, Ukrainian troops began launching quick, there-and-back raids on Russian positions across the river.
But the cross-river raid on Oct. 19 was different. That time, the Ukrainians—reportedly from the 38th Marine Brigade—stayed.
Ten days later, the marines not only still were on the Dnipro’s left bank, they’d extended their control across Krynky, a three-mile-wide settlement that has become the locus of Ukraine’s attacks in southern Kherson Oblast.
Ukrainian forces have secured a bridgehead across the Dnipro. It’s a prerequisite to launching a fresh counteroffensive south across Kherson’s fields and marshes toward Russian-occupied Crimea.
And it’s apparent how they’ve protected, and expanded, this bridgehead: by shuttling armored vehicles across the river aboard 1980s-vintage PTS-2 amphibious transports. A video depicting a PTS-2 swimming across the Dnipro, an armored vehicle on its deck, circulated online this week.
The PTS-2s might not be the Ukrainian military’s heaviest river-crossing capability in Kherson, however. There are good reasons to suspect it’s building bridges, too. Or is about to do so.
The PTS-2s are old, ungainly vehicles—but extremely useful for exactly the kind of operation the Ukrainians are conducting in Kherson right now. Before 2022, Ukraine reportedly possessed around 15 of the 24-ton, two-crew amphibians.
The PTS-2 is an upgrade of the 1960s-vintage PTS. The basic vehicle combines the chassis of an MT-T tractor, the running gear of the T-64 tank and a T-72’s 720-horsepower engine. A PTS-2 can haul 75 infantry or a single truck or armored vehicle.
The PTS-2’s payload reportedly is just 12 tons, but the PTS-2 spotted crossing the Dnipro may have had a BTR-4 fighting vehicle on its deck, according to the independent Conflict Intelligence Team.
A BTR-4 weighs 17 tons. It’s possible that, given the urgency of the Dnipro op, the PTS-2 crew was willing to risk the instability and structural stress that might result from an excessive load.
It’s apparent the Ukrainians somehow are getting vehicles across the Dnipro. Russian sources have reported Ukrainian armored vehicles around the Krynky bridgehead. And the Russians recently knocked out a mired Ukrainian Humvee whose crew had bailed out on the left bank.
Maybe the PTS-2s are doing the heaviest lifting while infantry cross in the Dnipro in small boats and lightweight supplies cross via drone. If the PTS-2s are the Ukrainians’ heaviest bridge-crossing capability, then there are some serious limits on the number and weight of the vehicles the Ukrainians can transport across the Dnipro.
Sure, Ukrainian troops may have squeezed a BTR-4 onto a PTS-2. But there’s no way they’ll get a 40-ton tank onto the amphib. To get tanks across the river, the Ukrainians will need to erect an assault bridge: either a floating pontoon span or a girder bridge.
Kyiv anticipated this need, and placed bridging equipment at the top of its wish-list as it approached its foreign allies for aid last spring. The 808th Pontoon Bridge Regiment, the Ukrainian army’s oldest and possibly best bridging unit, can span a 750-foot river in eight minutes with its Soviet-style pontoons.
But where a PTS-2 moves quickly and can hide between crossings, semi-permanent pontoon and girder bridges are difficult to hide and easy to strike with drones, warplanes and artillery. It’s worth noting, however, that the 808th Regiment this summer practiced building its bridges in silence, at night.
So it’s possible the Ukrainians are, or soon could be, building heavy spans across the Dnipro—perhaps starting the crossings at sunset and dispersing people and equipment before sunrise.
If Ukrainian tanks show up on the Dnipro’s left bank, it’s a good sign the 808th has been at work. Backing up the quick trips by the small force of old PTS-2s.
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