Thousands of North Korean troops are massing in Kursk Oblast in western Russia. The U.S. Defense Department expects that, any day now, these troops will march to the front line in Kursk to help Russian troops trying to roll back Ukraine’s surprise invasion of the oblast.
“Initial indications are that these troops will be employed in some type of infantry role,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson.
Ukrainian forces in their 270-square-mile salient in Kursk are getting a boost, too—potentially in the form of hundreds of American-made Stryker armored vehicles. A $425-million aid package the Pentagon announced on Friday includes bombs, missiles, artillery shells—and at least 212 of the speedy, eight-wheel Strykers.
Most of the Ukrainian military’s Strykers are already in Kursk. There’s no reason to believe the additional vehicles won’t also roll into the salient to meet the counterattacking Russians and their new North Korean allies.
It’s not apparent how quickly the new Strykers will arrive in Ukraine. It is apparent what the Ukrainians will do with the vehicles.
After subtracting the approximately two dozen Strykers the Ukrainians have lost to Russian fire, the additional vehicles will grow the Ukrainian Stryker inventory to nearly 400. Kyiv assigns the 18-ton, 11-person vehicles to air assault brigades—usually equipping three 31-vehicle battalions in each brigade.
Earlier batches of Strykers were sufficient to equip the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades, both of which contributed battalions to the invasion of Kursk starting in early August. A third air assault brigade, the 95th, is also in Kursk—and it doesn’t yet have any Strykers.
It would make sense for the general staff in Kyiv to prioritize the 95th Air Assault Brigade for the newly consigned Stykers, in order to align the brigade with its sister units in Kursk.
The nimble Stryker with its 60-mile-per-hour top speed is suited to the mix of chaotic urban combat and swift road assaults that’s typical of the fighting in the Russian oblast—and was also a hallmark of last spring’s battle for Vovchansk in northeastern Ukraine.
In Vovchansk, the 82nd Air Assault Brigade discovered what the U.S. Army already knew about the Stryker: in addition to being fast and maneuverable, the nine-foot-tall vehicle is a good observation and firing platform for top-mounted sensors and weapons.
Ukrainian troops bracing for the coming North Korean onslaught in Kursk would surely be grateful for a couple hundred extra Strykers. They’d probably be even more grateful for a few brigades of fresh troops to match the Russians’ North Korean reinforcements soldier-for-soldier.
But as much as the Ukrainian armed forces have struggled to generate enough modern armored vehicles, they’ve struggled more to generate additional manpower. Unless and until the defense ministry in Kyiv can resolve its recruiting crisis, those new Strykers might be the only help coming to Kursk.
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