In a build-up to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Ukrainian brigades equipped and trained for one of the most difficult maneuvers in land warfare: a breach. That is, a swift penetration of dirt and concrete fortifications by engineers and supporting vehicles—often under fire—so that tanks and infantry can break through.
Last year’s breaches were disasters, by and large, as Ukrainian forces bogged down in some of the densest minefields in the world and then came under fire from Russian artillery and helicopters.
This year, the Ukrainians got another chance to prove they could execute and exploit a breach. On Aug. 6, a dozen or so battalions from around eight Ukrainian brigades—from the army, air assault forces and territorials—invaded Kursk Oblast in southwestern Russia. The initial attacks involved several breaches, as did at least one follow-on attack in an adjacent sector five weeks later.
The most recent breach, on Thursday, was almost a textbook example of the maneuver. It worked … until it didn’t. The Ukrainians got through, but they didn’t get very far.
As a drone observed from overhead and at least one tank loomed a short distance away, an engineering vehicle—seemingly an ex-Soviet IMR-2 fitted with a mine plow—shoved its way through a berm, over a trench, through a second berm and then through a row of concrete tank obstacles.
While infantry scurried through the breach and began clearing a second trench, the IMR-2 rolled deeper into Russian territory—and eventually struck a mine.
The initial breach succeeded, but whatever measures the Ukrainians took to clear mines beyond the breach were obviously insufficient. The Kremlin claimed its troops ultimately defeated the Ukrainian attack “with the support of army aviation and artillery fire.”
The location of this breach, just south of the Russian village of Novyi Put, 20 miles west of the main Kursk salient, is interesting. It’s possible the breach was part of a surprise local operation—perhaps a reconnaissance-in-force ahead of fresh Ukrainian attacks meant to support the nearby Kursk operation.
Where the 2023 counteroffensive under then commander-in-chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny boldly—some would say foolishly—targeted the best-defended parts of the Russian line, this year the Ukrainians “chose the weakest point in the enemy’s defense,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s new top commander, told CNN.
That the Ukrainian troops who breached Russian defenses south of Novyi Put apparently didn’t get very far before at least one well-placed mine and a belated Russian bombardment halted their advance might mean that sector isn’t another “weakest point.”
