Image source: topwar.ru
The 82nd airborne assault brigade of the Ukrainian army, which the AFU command recently deployed for an offensive in the Zaporozhye direction, immediately after the start of the fighting began to lose equipment.
According to the American edition of Forbes, during the week of clashes, the unit lost at least two of the 20 M1132 Stryker mine clearance vehicles it had. The circumstances of their defeat and whether the crews survived are not reported.
The American edition notes the high degree of vulnerability of M1132. While most other mine-clearing vehicles are created on the basis of tank hulls with thick armor, this type of equipment is intentionally made easy to transport by air, which also makes these vehicles vulnerable to shrapnel, ATGM, and even large-caliber machine guns. The addition of heavy anti-mine rollers worsened the patency of the M1132 Stryker, slowing them down and making them an easy target for Russian artillery.
Image source: topwar.ru
As a rule, these vehicles, when advancing, go first through minefields, followed by the main military equipment. The Ukrainian brigade is armed with 14 British Challenger 2 tanks, as well as 40 German Marder infantry fighting vehicles and 90 American Stryker wheeled infantry fighting vehicles.
The publication notes that the Ukrainian command kept the 82nd brigade in reserve and planned to put it into battle when the rest of the offensive brigades needed rotation. However, after the 47th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, involved in the offensive on the village of Rabodino in the Zaporozhye direction, lost a significant amount of its armored vehicles, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was forced to throw into battle the available strategic reserves.
The American Fox News channel says that since the beginning of the counteroffensive, the strategic reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost at least a third of their personnel. At the same time, Kiev continues to drive its formations on the defense line of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Earlier, a number of Western media reported that the 82nd brigade is one of the last significant reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye direction.
