There are hints that Russia’s bloody, two-month campaign targeting Avdiivka, a key Ukrainian stronghold just northwest of Donetsk city in eastern Ukraine, is entering a new phase.
Russian ground assaults reportedly slowed last week while Russian drone raids on Ukrainian supply lines picked up.
That doesn’t mean Russian troops are done dying for Avdiivka, however. A Russian ground attack north of the city on Tuesday may have been one of the most violent yet.
But the Russians are running into Ukrainian armored vehicles staging around the ruins of Stepove, anchoring Avdiivka’s northern flank. Ukrainian tanks are firing at attacking Russian infantry at point-blank range. And Ukraine’s American-made M-2 infantry fighting vehicles are working the roads and treelines with their fast-firing autocannons.
The results are horrifying for the Russians. The Ukrainians’ M-2s “have proved effective in providing their infantry with fire-support,” analyst Tom Cooper noted. That’s a sterile way of saying they’re killing a lot of Russian attackers.
The 28-ton, nine-person M-2s with their 25-millimeter autocannons, day-night optics and add-on reactive armor might be the best IFVs in Ukrainian service, although Ukraine’s ex-Swedish CV90s also could claim that honorific.
One drone video that recently circulated online illustrates the M-2’s devastating combination of situational-awareness, firepower and protection. Three Russian armored vehicles—MT-LB armored tractors, apparently—roll along a road outside Stepove at night. Perhaps hauling infantry for an assault on the settlement.
An M-2 lies in wait. It spots the Russian vehicles, opens up with its 25-millimeter gun and, firing 200 one-pound shells per minute at a velocity of 3,600 feet per second, apparently hits all three vehicles in the span of half a minute. At least two of the vehicles explode.
This is consistent with U.S. Army doctrine. “IFVs are well-suited for far ambushes in open terrain that afford[s] some means of concealment,” the U.S. Army explained in one field manual.
M-2s belonging to the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade have been fighting a defensive action north of Avdiivka for more than a month now. Their firepower helps to explain the veritable carpet of bodies that stretches from Stepove to the Russian rear.
The Russians have managed to advance a mile or so to the outskirts of Stepove, but at the cost of 13,000 dead and wounded. Ukrainian casualties seem to be in the low four digits.
The 47th Brigade’s M-2 battalions have suffered their share of losses. The brigade got 190 M-2 from U.S. stocks and, between its attacks in southern Ukraine this summer and its operations around Avdiivka, has lost around 30 of them. The Russian army even managed to capture one M-2 the Ukrainian army abandoned outside Stepove.
What happens next is unclear. The Russians as recently as last week seemed determined to cut their losses around Avdiivka and shift from infantry assaults to drone raids. The uptick in violence on Tuesday defies that trend.
If Russia’s intensive infantry attacks do continue, expect Ukraine’s M-2s to keep fighting back.
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