Ukraine’s best combat vehicles were ambushed near Veseloe

On August 6, a powerful Ukrainian force – about a dozen 400-person battalions from eight different brigades – invaded Russia’s Kursk Oblast, quickly capturing 400 square miles of the oblast from its unprepared Russian defenders.

Five weeks later, on September 12, a separate Ukrainian force of several companies or battalions launched a second invasion – breaching the Russia-Ukraine border near Novyi Put, 32 kilometers west of the main Kursk salient. The apparent objective of this second attack was ambitious: to move troops east, toward the main salient, and potentially trap thousands of Russian soldiers between the Ukrainian invaders and the border.

But after weeks of heavy fighting, the Ukrainians’ Novyi Put operation appears to be bogged down in the fields south of the town of Veseloe, a few kilometers north of Novyi Put. On or shortly before 20 September, a strong Ukrainian force with German-made Marder fighting vehicles and Swedish-made CV90 fighting vehicles and Strv 122 tanks rolled along the main road connecting Veseloe with Glushkovo, the next main settlement, six kilometers northeast.

The Russian 106th Airborne Division was waiting. Laying mines and firing artillery, anti-tank missiles and first-person view drones, the Russians apparently defeated the September 20 Ukrainian attack as well as subsequent attacks. A drone video published this week by the 106th Airborne Division shows 15 or 16 Ukrainian vehicles destroyed, including some of the best Ukrainian combat vehicles: one or two CV90s, a Marder, and a U.S. M-2 and Stryker.

The mix of vehicles underlines the importance that the General Staff in Kiev attached to the invasion of Novyi Put. Companies or battalions of the 21st and 47th Mechanized Brigades (respectively with CV90s and M-2s) and 95th Air Assault Brigade (with Marders and Strykers) joined the 225th Assault Battalion and the 501st Marine Battalion attacking through Novyi Put towards Veseloe and Glushkovo. These are some of the best brigades and battalions in the Ukrainian force structure.

But even these elite formations are struggling to get past Veseloe and reach Glushkovo. Unless and until the Ukrainians manage to advance along the main road connecting these settlements, their apparently broader objective – meeting up with the main Kursk salient – ​​will remain an aspiration.

If there is a consolation prize for frustrated Ukrainians, it is the fact that the Russians are also fighting along the Veseloe-Glushkovo road. Counterattacks by the 106th Airborne Division or some other paratroop formation met the same fate as the Ukrainian attacks – bombarded by missiles, artillery and drones. There are as many destroyed Russian vehicles scattered across the roads and nearby fields as there are Ukrainian vehicles.

It’s important to note, however, that the Russians have more vehicles to lose.