A reflection that I consider important after yesterday’s article on the 28th Brigade (a victim not only of the strength of Wagner’s attack in itself, but also of a rushed deployment after the hard battles of Kherson - same with the 128th) and Zelensky’s visit to Marinka today, where he met the Ukrainian marines who have been defending the sector for months. I reckon a very important issue is that of rotations.

There are under-appreciated brigades that among “media” silence have been doing their utmost duty for months in the secondary sectors of the front. Let’s look at the lions of the 72nd Brigade, in Vuhledar since October (okay, they are well known luckily!), but also the 14th in Kupyansk, the 66th along the banks of the Zherebets, the 95th that took part in the Kharkiv counter-offensive and has been holding positions near Kreminna basically ever since. The 10th Mountain Assault Brigade has been in the Soledar sector since… early October, I think? The two marine brigades around Avdiivka as written above, the 79th in Marinka and so on…

This tells us two things imho. The first, and good news, is that they did not suffer too significant losses. Generally, looking at the deployment map of the formations, we notice that when a brigade is pulled off from the front it’s usually because of significant losses impacting its basic efficiency (the 128th and 46th at Soledar, the 24th at Bakhmut in January, also the 93rd in December before it returned two months later…). The second, however, is that inevitably, as the weeks go by, attrition runs its course , fighting capabilities worsen and there are risks of burn-out and morale issues among the troops; the command risks exhaustion as well. Of course, rotations are always taking place at intra-brigade level, between battalions and companies, and some new recruits may arrive. But as losses accumulate, battalions become more and more organic to the brigade and less and less independent units.

I am personally convinced that we will soon witness a large rotation of formations at the front as the newly formed brigades arrive. The Ukrainian Army has never been as large as it is now, it has many new brigades that are on average well trained and this allows them to be smartly deployed avoiding the serious problems experienced in Donbass from May to August 2022 that created a negative moment in several sectors. In any case, I think that in war an army doesn’t have to and cannot be perfect, it has to be better than the opponent… and the Russians are doing their best to make this an easy task for Ukraine.

These months have bought time to finish training of the new brigades; now the ones that have been holding the front for a long time deserve a rest in the safe rear to replenish manpower and equipment and recover offensive capabilities. Beyond the hyped counter-offensive, I am convinced that part of the new brigades will have to replace the existing ones for the summer period. There are certainly existing brigades that have been resting for months as of now, such as the 62nd, 63rd, 65th (the latter completed the formation of its tank battalion last month) or the 115th. In my opinion, some of the new brigades being formed might be strictly destined to offensive operations (we have seen the 23rd training in trench assault, the 32nd receiving Bradley’s and the 33rd with Leopard 2A4s, then perhaps the 21st, 22nd, 31st, certainly the 47th and 82nd) while probably others (the two new marine brigades? The 116th, 117th and 118th brigades? Or those outside the 10th Operational Corp, if the leaks are to be taken by the book?) could be destined to replace the brigades on the frontline today. Paging u/antipenko about this, whom I always read with extreme interest when I happen to be here.

With the additions of 2023 I believe that the Ukrainian Army has reached a well-balanced number of brigades in relation to manpower and equipment capabilities, and now the focus could be on reforming some territorial defence brigades (e.g. those from Western Ukraine) as rifle or motorized brigades and on exploiting the large pool of men the TDF has at its disposal as efficiently as possible.

A final note is on the Ukrainian tank brigades, which have seen relatively little action in recent times (with the partial exception of the 17th). I think one reason is that they may have acted as a pool to replenish tank losses in other units and perhaps to equip new ones as they wait for Western tanks to be sent in. In addition, the huge failure of the Russian tank division model with too much armour in relation to men may have convinced the Ukrainian General Staff to concentrate on forming new mechanized rather than armoured brigades (look at the 5th Tank Brigade which was never actived).

I believe Ukrainian tactical model could look towards separate tank battalions, along the lines of those the US Army fielded during WW2 - battalions that were temporarily attached to a division as part of an attack, for armoured reinforcement. In this context, we could see single battalions of the tank brigades being actively integrated into, for example, the Offensive Guard brigades, which we clearly know are being trained for offensive purposes but lack a sizeable armoured component (generally one tank company I think, but they are not guaranteed to get it due to the MBTs shortage).

Interesting! The 88th Mechanized Brigade, or at least an unit of it, was deployed to the front. Apparently, in the Kupjansk sector. Could it replace the 14th? Earlier I had written a comment highlighting the need of rotations and speculating on the roles of the new brigades being formed. I did not mention the 88th as there was very little information about it and I believed it was further behind in training, as with the 41/42/43rd brigades and the 13th Jager. Instead, looks like it should be the first brigade among those formed in 2023 to be deployed to the front. I wish the guys a fruitful work.

I think so - generally, training happens at battalion-level afaik, and therefore the first one may be ready while the others are still in Western Ukraine for training. That said, it’s important to note that the first unit has reached the frontline and carried out the first actions of war, it could be an indication of important rotations and deployments in the coming weeks.

Hi, you’re welcome!

I had seen the video of the train carrying the M-55s of the 47th, most likely heading east, but then I had no more updates on its precise deployment. The 37th is supposed to be near Kherson at the moment, right?