On Oct. 13, Russian marines from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade captured, stripped and executed nine Ukrainian drone operators while counterattacking the 300-square-mile Ukrainian-held salient in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
The next day, a pair of Ukrainian air assault brigades—the 82nd and 95th—went on a mission of revenge, deliberately hunting down small units from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade … and taking no prisoners.
The vengeance continues. On Friday, the 95th Air Assault Brigade cornered a 155th Naval Infantry Brigade platoon near the village of Leonidovo in Kursk and dismantled it—reportedly destroying three BTR wheeled armored personnel carriers and killing 30 Russians.
“The teleportation of the enemy to Hell took place in a complex way,” the Ukrainian air assault branch explained. A Ukrainian drone damaged the first BTR, making it an easy target for a nearby Ukrainian tank.
After that, one of 95th Air Assault Brigade’s anti-tank specialists—notoriously some of the most bloodthirsty troops on the battlefield of Russia’s 32-month wider war on Ukraine—destroyed the second BTR with a well-aimed Javelin missile.
The third BTR ran over a mine the 95th Air Assault Brigade’s engineers had placed in its path. “Greetings from the 95th,” the brigade quipped.
This isn’t the first time the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade has suffered heavy casualties. The brigade, which at full strength has around 3,000 troops, lost as many as 300 troops a day for days on end and was “nearly destroyed” while attacking the fortress town of Vuhledar in southern Ukraine in February 2023, according to the Warsaw Institute, a Polish think tank.
The Kremlin sent replacement marines—and ordered the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade back into action around Vuhledar. It promptly got destroyed again. “The 155th has likely been reduced to combat ineffective status at least twice in the last six months,” the U.K. defense ministry concluded in April 2023.
Vuhledar finally fell to the Russians on Oct. 1 after its exhausted Ukrainian garrison, anchored by the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, ran low on battle-ready troops. It’s possible the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, which kicked off on Aug. 6, was the decisive factor. The Kursk operation arguably deprived units such as the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of badly needed reinforcements.
The 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had already redeployed to Kursk by the time of Vuhledar’s capture. The brigade led the Russian attack on the western edge of the Ukrainian salient last week, initially advancing several miles—and capturing those unfortunate drone operators—before Ukrainian counterattacks blunted its momentum.
The current fighting isn’t just the usual back and forth that has characterized this largely positional war. For the comrades of those murdered Ukrainian drone operators, it’s personal. The Ukrainian air assault forces refer to the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade’s marines as “bastards,” “rabid dogs” and “war criminals.”
For the Ukrainians in Kursk, vengeance is a powerful motivator. The implication, for the Russians, is chilling. It’s possible the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is about to get destroyed again.
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