Against all odds, Ukrainian forces went on the attack on Sunday. Assault groups anchored by Ukraine’s independent air assault forces rolled out from their trenches and basement bunkers on the northern edge of the 250-square-mile salient Ukrainian troops hold in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast and, despite being outnumbered three-to-one all along the salient, advanced as far as two miles.
The fighting in and around the village of Berdin was fierce. Drones pummeled attackers and defenders alike. Ukrainian and Russian infantry were close enough to each other to fire short-range grenade launchers. And one Ukrainian crew turned their eight-wheeled Stryker infantry fighting vehicle into a weapon—and ran down, and over, at least one hapless Russian soldier trying to dodge on foot.
The brutal daytime incident on a snow-blanketed field somewhere in Kursk was dispassionately observed by at least two Ukrainian surveillance drones. As the drones streamed video, the 19-ton Stryker accelerated across the field, turning sharply to line up on Russian soldiers caught unprotected in the snow.
It’s apparent from the footage that the speedy Stryker, normally crewed by two soldiers, struck someone. Whether that someone lived or died is unclear. Injured or dead, they’re just another broken body in a war that has killed and maimed more than a million people on both sides in 35 bloody months.
Only the circumstances are unique. Why were the Russians all alone and unsupported? Why didn’t the Stryker crew open fire with the vehicle’s top-mounted machine gun instead of running down, with great effort and at great risk, its victim or victims?
It’s possible to answer both questions. If the Ukrainians advanced quickly enough, taking the defending Russians by surprise, they may have succeeded in cutting off a few outlying Russian positions and the unfortunate troops occupying them. That kind of confused fighting has characterized the battle for Kursk ever since a strong Ukrainian forces invaded the oblast back in August.
As for the Stryker crew’s motives—it’s possible the vehicle’s gun jammed or ran out of ammunition. Equally possible: the automotive slaughter was nothing more than bloodlust.
If the latter, it’s an important indicator of the morale and will to fight of at least one vehicle crew in a military that admittedly has thousands of them. Hatred of the enemy, and an eagerness to kill them, is a prerequisite for victory in a young army facing a more established foe.
Cultivating this hatred is difficult. It comes with time and painful experience. When the fledgling U.S. Army first deployed to battle the war-hardened Nazi Germans in North Africa in 1942, the absence of hatred among many of the American rank and file contributed to initially poor results, according to historian Rick Atkinson writing in his seminal history An Army At Dawn.
George Patton, the legendary tank general who helped lead the Americans in Africa, complained that he needed officers who could “sweat, get mad and think at the same time.” Moreover, he needed “men with an adequate hatred of Germans,” Atkinson wrote.
It took some bitter losses in the African desert to teach the Americans that hatred 83 years ago—but they ultimately did learn. The Ukrainians, many of whom were civilians as recently as three years ago and joined the military only after Russia widened its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, may have been quicker to internalize that vital hatred of a foreign attacker.
If one bloodthirsty vehicle crew going out of its way to run over a defenseless Russian is any indication, the hatred now runs deep.
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