At the beginning of the “anti-terrorist” operation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were more likely to blockade individual settlements captured by the militia to ensure the subsequent “cleansing” operation. The forces of the National Guard of Ukraine and numerous territorial battalions were engaged in the dirty work of eliminating undesirable persons. However, they clearly lacked the strength and skills. The militias in cities and towns offered decent resistance. Therefore, the Armed Forces of Ukraine had to take upon themselves all the moral and physical burden of an independent "cleansing" of settlements.
Usually the tactics were unpretentious - small mechanized groups enter the city from different directions and capture all the most important points (administration, etc.). And here, in fact, the most interesting thing began. Most of the militias were armed with anti-tank grenade launchers and knew how to handle them well. And the armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of the 70s were not adapted for fighting in urban conditions, however, modern world models were not far from it in this indicator.
As a result, the Ukrainian command made another maneuver and abandoned the storming of cities head-on in favor of encirclement and blockade with power, water and gas cutoffs. Artillery was actively launched, which in urban development hit mainly civilians rather than militias. What happened outside the settlements? And here the Ukrainian military was very reluctant to go to contact battles.
An illustrative example is near Yampol in June 2014, in which units of 25 PDBMs, 24 ICBMs, 95 Aembr and NSU participated. Each attack began with a massive offensive of armored vehicles without infantry support. In the event of opposition, tanks, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles retreated, giving way to massive artillery shelling of the entrenched militias. Usually the shock armored group consisted of 2-3 BMP-2, 2 armored personnel carriers and one T-64BV. The artillery fire rained down very significant - both the self-propelled guns and the MLRS worked. In one of the blogs, a participant in the events writes that "it is difficult to imagine what kind of hell was going on at the positions of the militants: 9 122-mm barrels, 6 152-mm barrels (periodically all 10) and BM-21 work for you." Paradoxically, if the militia had effective anti-tank weapons, the Armed Forces of Ukraine allowed convoys consisting of KamAZ trucks with Zu-23-2 and BMD-1 to reach the contact line. And this is with a sufficient saturation of machines of the T-64 type in 24 ICBMs. Of course, such "light" columns were destroyed from ambushes, roadblocks and remote bombs. As a result, the tactics of minimizing losses and avoiding combat contact led to the loss of several days and even weeks, which the militia used to prepare for the exit from Slavyansk.
Map of one of the stages of hostilities near Yampol.
One of the most successful episodes of the conflict in the South-East of Ukraine for the Armed Forces of Ukraine was the landing operations in the area of the Slavic-Kramatorsk agglomeration. On April 15, 2014, four Mi-8s, with the support of a pair of Mi-24s, landed special forces fighters on the site of the flying club in Kramatorsk, who eventually took control of it. A little later, on April 27, the second famous Ukrainian landing took place, however, it ended less solemnly. In the Donetsk region, near Soledar, in the area of the Volodarsky mine, 15 paratroopers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were delivered by helicopter. At the checkpoint, they captured two militias, wounded one, but local miners with crowbars, pipes and shovels recaptured one prisoner. As a result, the paratroopers, after warning shots into the air, plunged into the helicopter and ignominiously flew away, taking one prisoner. The case ended even worse on June 12, when, in broad daylight, 8 people were parachuted from a helicopter onto the route of the convoy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine directly to the location of the militia. Naturally, the would-be landing was surrounded and captured.
Company tactical groups (RTG) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the summer offensive in Donbass in 2014 became the main characters in the theater of operations. As part of a mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, such a group consisted of an infantry company, 1-2 tank platoons, a howitzer artillery battery, a sniper squad, a reconnaissance platoon and units of repairmen with MTO. The RTGs of tank brigades are based on the base of the tank companies, and the infantry platoons go as support. But by July, after the famous "cauldrons", the leadership changed the logic of the formation of the RTG: now each group consisted of one mechanized infantry company and one tank company. In part of the groups, the howitzers were removed, and in their place were artillery battalions and RZSO batteries. A similar organizational structure has survived to this day. A typical company group of the Armed Forces includes 250-450 personnel, 20-25 infantry fighting vehicles / armored personnel carriers, 10-12 tanks, 6-12 self-propelled guns or towed howitzers, up to 6 RZSO.
Battalion tactical groups (BTGs), another players in the South-East of Ukraine, in the army were formed on the basis of an infantry battalion, which was attached to a tank company, a howitzer battalion, an RZSO battery, a sniper platoon, a reconnaissance company and a consolidated repair and recovery company with a MTO company. Since August 2014, a reform has taken place in the BTG unit (1 brigade, 24 mechanized brigade, 30 mechanized brigade, etc.): now there were three battalions at once (tank, mechanized and reconnaissance). Artillery and rocket battalions with an anti-tank battery appeared.
The shortage of personnel became the main reason for the formation of such a large mass of RTGs and BHT, which even mobilization did not satisfy. By the beginning of hostilities, the combined arms brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were staffed by 30%, at best by 50%! That is, not only the equipment was in a deplorable state, there was sometimes no one to even fight on it. Units in which there was at least 70-80% of the peacetime staff became the elite - these are the 25th airborne, 80th airmobile and 1st tank brigades. The first and second waves of mobilization added no more than 30% of the number of soldiers that were necessary for the transition to martial law. For example, the 30th mechanized brigade, even in the most "well-fed" times, did not count up to 1,500 personnel. That is why the military leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine brought together everything that was in the army in the RTG and BGT, otherwise it would be suicide to start up full-time incomplete units into battle. A distinctive aspect of such groups was the weak divisions of repairmen and logistics - the staff was 70-80% full. There was a lack of BREM, KET-L, MTO-AT and other equipment.
In many ways, the leadership of the Armed Forces planned to adopt the "advanced" experience of the American military in the use of mechanized groups in hostilities. As in Iraq, the RTG and BTG had to move along the roads, and checkpoints were set up at the intersection, in which the notorious Terbats and units of the NSU were deployed. Each group during the march had marching outposts only in the head and in the tail; the Ukrainians, on the advice of the Americans, decided to neglect the side marching outposts. Everyone expected the militias to be equipped with only small arms or, at best, hand grenade launchers. And such maneuvering groups with a hundred other equipment in each moved into the operational space with the aim of capturing settlements on the axis of Berezovoye, Novy Svet, Starobeshevo, Kuteinikovo, Stepanovo and Amvrosievka.
It was planned to set up a checkpoint at each recaptured line to control the situation. It is noteworthy that the Ukrainians copied the experience of the "green berets" in Iraq in 2003, when special forces in light vehicles made lightning-fast march in front of the moving main group of forces. The Armed Forces of Ukraine equipped for this the 3rd special-purpose regiment on UAZs and armored personnel carriers. No one in the army leadership and among overseas advisers, obviously, counted on serious resistance from the militia, the presence of heavy weapons and low moral readiness of the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for such hostilities.
Among the obvious advantages of the Ukrainian army, one can single out competent medical support in combat units. There are many military hospitals on the territory of Ukraine, which hastened the restoration of the "300" and their further return to the South-East. The Ministry of Defense approved a unified algorithm for actions on the battlefield, which was included in the training program for personnel for an anti-terrorist operation. Much of the medical success is related to the work of volunteers providing first aid supplies to soldiers. The LDNR's headache was sabotage and reconnaissance groups, breaking deep into the rear, right up to Donetsk and Lugansk. Usually these are several vehicles with mortars capable of causing serious panic in a metropolis. It is interesting that Ukrainians in this direction are adopting the relevant experience of the Americans in Vietnam, as well as NATO instructors in Libya. Finally, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have a paradoxical trump card up their sleeve: when some of the units are understaffed, there is a huge mobilization potential of the entire country behind the backs of the military. By the most conservative estimates, Ukraine's strategic advantage over Donbass in human resources is about 12: 1. But this is where the tactical and strategic advantages of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the army of the LDNR end.
