The answer to that question has implications for Ukraine’s 18-day-old southern counteroffensive, which has been making slow progress along several axes in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts.
Kyiv and its foreign allies spent months standing up, training and equipping nine new brigades specifically for the counteroffensive, plus additional brigades that would function as a reserve.
But so far we’ve seen just three, maybe four, of the brigades in action alongside older Ukrainian formations. The 117th Mechanized Brigade is one of the missing brigades. Where the brigade is, and what it’s waiting for, could speak volumes about Kyiv’s strategy as the counteroffensive grinds into its third week.
When the Ukrainians attacked starting the night of June 4, they did so in battalion-size formations along three or four main sectors. These attacks, while ultimately successful, were costly.
Elements of the new 37th Marine Brigade outran its artillery support near Velyka Novosilka and lost several AMX-10RC reconnaissance vehicles. A battlegroup from a pair of new brigades—the 33rd Mechanized and 47th Assault Brigades—got mired in a minefield south of Mala Tomachka and abandoned a couple dozen of its best tanks, fighting vehicles and breaching vehicles.
It’s possible Ukrainian commanders were probing for gaps in Russian defenses along the southern front line—and holding back the bulk of their forces, saving them for an eventual exploitation of a breach.
“We know this is going to take time, and we are confident that the Ukrainians have what they need,” Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday. “They have the combat power.”
But where is that combat power? Have the Ukrainians staged all nine of their new brigades in the south? How close are they to the front line? How fast could they roll into action?
If we could determine where the 117th Mechanized Brigade was, we might be able to guess at these questions. But despite having at least one social media account, the brigade has maintained fairly strict secrecy.
We know the 117th Brigade exists because it’s on the list of newly-formed Ukrainian units that a U.S. Air National Guard airman leaked online this spring.
Mikhail Sergeevich Zvinchuk, a former Kremlin official and popular Telegram-user, back in January claimed the 117th was forming around Matkiivka near Zaporizhzhia city. A video the 117th posted on June 3 purports to depict some of the brigade’s trucks in Nikopol district, west of Zaporizhzhia. It’s hard to verify either claim.
The documents the airman leaked specify the 2,000-person brigade’s table of equipment: 28 Viking all-terrain vehicles, 10 XA-185 wheeled personnel carriers, 20 M-113 tracked personnel carriers, 31 PT-91 tanks, 12 D-30 towed howitzers and eight AS-90 tracked howitzers.
It’s an odd mix of ex-Dutch, ex-British and ex-Polish weapons, but a potentially powerful one. The AS-90s are fairly modern howitzers. The PT-91s are highly-upgraded T-72s that should outclass most Russian tank types.
Those howitzers and tanks could make a big difference in southern Ukraine, once Kyiv decides finally to deploy the brigade.
If the Ukrainians’ plan is to mass most or all of their uncommitted combat power for a single major armored thrust somewhere in the south, expect the 117th to roll into combat alongside several other new brigades that we know exist, but which haven’t yet appeared on the front line: the 21st, 32nd and 118th Mechanized and—especially—the super-powerful 82nd Air Assault.
Source : Forbes
