As stocks of armored cars run low after 28 months of fierce fighting, the Russian military is increasingly relying on its new bad idea: equipping frontline troops with reasonable dirt bikes.
The more Russians enter the war on dirt bikes, the more they are killed or injured while going to war on dirt bikes.
Analyst Andrew Perpetua showed the destruction, basically by Ukrainian drones, of five Russian war bikes in February, one in March, thirteen in April, 56 in May and nine in the first week of June alone. Dozens of other bicycles were damaged.
“It is curious the number of casualties the Russians suffered in their motorcycle attacks,” Perpetua wrote.
Despite heavy losses, the Russian military is redoubling its efforts on the attack motorcycle concept, which armies have tried and abandoned several times since World War I. The Russian army’s Fifth Motorized Rifle Brigade, fighting around Krasnohorivka in eastern Ukraine, has formed a special motorcycle platoon, according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies.
The peloton is building up and is under pressure, Russian correspondent Alexander Sladkov. “This is in addition to the struggle of motorcyclists in the battalions,” he wrote in a letter translated by Estonian analyst War Translated. According to Sladkov, it is possible that more brigades will form their own platoons of cyclists and tasked them with “delivering the shipment and evacuating the wounded”.
But most likely they will also play a direct fighting role. Increasingly, Russian commanders, short of vehicles, are sending their troops on bicycles into direct attacks on Ukrainian positions.
During a recent Russian operation, somewhere in southern Ukraine, the first wave of attackers rode in tanks and armored fighting vehicles. When this wave hit a wall of Ukrainian artillery and drones, the Russians sent in a second wave, on foot and by bicycle.
The effects were disastrous for the Russians. “Sometimes even six artillery pieces fired at their positions simultaneously,” says a Ukrainian drone operator who uses the call sign “Kriegsforscher. ”
In recent weeks, up to 4 Ukrainian brigades (the 28th, 30th and 54th Mechanized Brigades and the 79th Air Assault Brigade) have attacked Russian troops on bicycles with first-user observed explosive drones and grenade-launching bomber drones. Some Russian teams that weld their motorcycles seem to be of great help.
Speculation arose this spring that Russia’s new bicycle tactics could help the Kremlin’s war effort, by making individual infantrymen faster and harder to spot from the air.
In practice, cycling troops are desperately vulnerable to artillery and drones and are dying in increasing numbers. But with very few armored vehicles, the Russians don’t have many alternatives.
If a Russian unit isn’t lucky enough to have access to fairly modern BMP fighting vehicles, it would possibly have to settle for 50-year-old MT-LB armored tractors, Chinese-made golf carts, or, increasingly, dirt bikes.
The only other option is to go into battle, but it’s even more damaging than riding a motorcycle.
Sources:
1. Andrew Perpetua: https://x. com/bentanmy/status/1800417831022100870; https://x. com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1799522132545646878
2. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief. substack. com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-260624
3. War Translated: https://x. com/wartranslated/status/1805187057288958153
4. Kriegsforscher: https://x. com/OSINTua/status/1799841051693494482
5. Rob Lee: https://x. com/RALee85/status/1799846185160806668
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