Mykola Melnyk was a lawyer in Ukraine when Russia invaded in 2014. Melnyk immediately abandoned his practice and volunteered to help the Ukrainian army to defend Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
Nine years later, Melnyk—now a 38-year-old senior lieutenant—joined the army’s new 47th Mechanized Brigade. The brigade that, on June 9, would lead the initial assaults of Ukraine’s long-planned 2023 counteroffensive.
Melynk’s counteroffensive was a short one. On day one, he stepped on a mine and lost a leg, barely surviving. Looking back on the counteroffensive’s chaotic early days, the lawyer-turned-infantryman has … opinions.
Ukrainian military leaders underestimated the Russians’ determination to hold territory they’d captured, Melynk said in a wide-ranging interview with Censor. The same leaders changed units’ organization and equipment at the last minute, wrecking their cohesion, Melynk claimed. Ukrainian aviation didn’t show up to support the ground troops, he added.
But for all his criticism of the top brass and the air force, Melynk had only good things to say about the American-made M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles his company rode into battle. “The Bradley withstood everything,” Melynk said.
The 47th Brigade is the main operator of the roughly 200 M-2A2ODS(SA) Bradleys that the United States pledged to Ukraine early this year.
Updated for better situational awareness (the “SA” in the designation) in the aftermath of the 1991 Operation Desert Storm (the “ODS”), the 28-ton, nine-person M-2 with its 25-millimeter autocannon and add-on reactive armor might be the best IFV in Ukrainian service, although Ukraine’s ex-Swedish CV90 could also claim that honorific.
Yes, the 47th Brigade has lost dozens of M-2s. But many of them might be recoverable and repairable. And more importantly, the 47th Brigade hasn’t lost dozens of M-2 crews. The Americans designed the vehicle to protect its occupants, after all. “A Bradley may be hit, but the crew survives,” Melynk said.
The same can’t be said of the BMP-2 IFV, Russia’s answer to the M-2. Hit a BMP-2, Melynk said, and “the entire crew dies.”
Melynk’s own M-2 ate a Russian shell during the assault on June 9. “The projectile hit under the right side,” the former lawyer recalled. “The armor withstood the fragments, but the shockwave tore the wiring in the vehicle.” The driver was concussed, but the M-2’s 600-horsepower diesel engine kept right on running. “We drove on.”
In Melynk’s experience, the M-2 is most vulnerable to attack from the air. Which makes sense, as the Bradley’s designers left the tops of the hull and turret lightly-protected in order to add protection—and weight—to the front and sides.
“The only case when the Bradley did not withstand impacts was from the work of helicopters,” Melynk said. He recalled a raid bv Russian air force Kamov Ka-52 attack helicopters that hit a 47th Brigade assault column. “One Bradley detonated.”
But Melynk stressed that, in other cases, the 47th Brigade’s M-2s rolled right through Ka-52 raids. “In principle, this is a very reliable vehicle,” he said.
The M-2 saves Ukrainian lives. After Melynk stepped on the mine that took his leg, an M-2 speeded in to evacuate him.
But the Bradley’s robustness doesn’t make it some wonderweapon. According to Melynk, some Ukrainian commanders genuinely believed Russian troops would simply give up the first time they saw a Ukrainian M-2—or Leopard 2 tank—rolling toward them.
“The whole plan of the big counteroffensive was based on simple things: a Muscovite sees a Bradley, a Leopard—and runs away,” Melynk said.
That of course didn’t happen. It took the 47th Brigade and other counteroffensive units five months, and many casualties—including Melynk—to advance 10 or a dozen miles along several axes.
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