Russland vs. Ukraine

[Quintus Fabius]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/20...e43cc37db9

Ukraine’s Best Tank Brigade Has Won The Battle For Chernihiv

The Ukrainian army’s 1st Tank Brigade was outnumbered—not only by the 10 or so battalion tactical groups belonging to the Russian 41st Combined Arms Army, but also adjacent Russian formations.

Incredibly, the 1st Tank Brigade not only halted the larger Russian force in the first few days of Russia’s wider war in Ukraine, it swiftly transitioned to an active defense and, for the next five weeks, protected the city of Chernihiv, 60 miles northeast of Kyiv.

The Russians surrounded and cut off Chernihiv, but the 1st Tank Brigade and an assortment of reserve and territorial units held out. On Thursday, the Ukrainians retook the first of several main roads connecting Kyiv and Chernihiv, lifting a month-long siege and shifting the momentum along this front toward the Ukrainians for the first time since the Russians attacked.

The 1st Tank Brigade is one of the best of Ukraine’s 20 active brigades. It includes three tank battalions with the latest locally-produced T-64BM tanks as well as a mechanized infantry battalion with BMP fighting vehicles. Each battalion on paper includes 40 or 50 vehicles and around 400 troops.

Incredibly, the 1st Tank Brigade appears to have preserved many of its T-64s through the weeks of siege warfare. The brigade is one of the few users of the latest T-64BM with its uprated engine and armor. Analysts have confirmed the destruction of just two T-64BMs, both apparently belonging to the Ukrainian army’s tank school in Kharkiv.

That doesn’t meant the 1st Tank Brigade hasn’t lost any tanks. But it does imply that the brigade hasn’t lost so many tanks that photographic evidence is easy to find.

After suffering 10,000 or more troops killed, wounded or captured and also writing off thousands of vehicles to Ukrainian drones and missileers, the Russians signaled a retreat from northern Ukraine starting the last week of March.