Deployment of Elite 82nd Brigade ‘Won’t Turn the Tide’ of Ukraine’s Flagging Counteroffensive

US media reported this week that Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade, dubbed the “most powerful unit” in the nation’s military (and among the last of its reserves), had been thrown into battle against Russian forces. In an exclusive commentary for Sputnik, veteran Russian war correspondent Evgeny Poddubny explained what’s really going on.

Kiev has thrown one of its best-equipped and trained units into battle, with the Russian military confirming Tuesday that forces near Rabotino in Zaporozhye region had repelled three attacks by assault units from Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade, with 200 Ukrainian troops reportedly killed and five tanks, eight armored and infantry fighting vehicles and two Msta-B howitzers destroyed.

US business media said that the brigade, which spent most of the past two-and-a-half months held in reserve as Ukraine’s military attempted to mount its counteroffensive, had finally been deployed, characterizing the development as both “good and bad news” for Kiev.

Equipped with depleted uranium shell-armed Challenger 2 tanks, the 82nd Brigade is also armed with Marder and Stryker armored vehicles – among the most modern NATO equipment delivered to Kiev among the bloc’s tens of billions of dollars in “aid.”

The 82nd Brigade is said to be among “the last major units” available to Ukrainian command. Its deployment “could significantly boost” Ukrainian forces’ firepower in the short term, but when the 82nd and its sister 46thAir Assault Brigade are pulled back, “there might not be any equally powerful fresh brigades to fill in for them,” which means “the counteroffensive could lose momentum,” the report warned.

What Does the Deployment Actually Mean?

“Firstly, the media, as always, is a little bit confused,” Evgeny Poddubny, a military correspondent for Russia’s VGTRK broadcaster and one of Russia’s best-known war reporters, told Sputnik, when asked to comment on the news of the 82nd Brigade’s deployment. “This is a formation, not a division, of troops. I wouldn’t speak so dramatically about it. It’s all headline chasing,” the frontline journalist stressed.

Introducing reserves into battle is an “absolutely normal practice,” Poddubny said, pointing to Ukrainian forces’ need to rotate troops from its 9th and 10th Army corps after being mauled by Russian forces over the past two months.

“Accordingly, if this reserve is being introduced, the formations which have suffered significant losses are withdrawn for replenishment and the restoration of their combat readiness. Thus, on the one hand, the Kiev regime is attempting to maintain the potential formed over many months to organize the so-called Azov Operation [counteroffensive, ed.], while on the other, it is trying to push through our defensive line with fresh forces – fortunately, so far without success,” the correspondent said.

Poddubny pointed out that to date, Ukraine’s forces have been unable to break even the first line of Russia’s defenses. Therefore, throwing the reserve into battle has virtually no chance of altering the overall situation at the front.

“Even the fact that the brigade is armed with British tanks and modern Western fighting vehicles won’t be able to turn the tide, for the simple reason that the Kiev regime’s formations cannot overcome the minefields, and…cannot get through the opposition put up by our reconnaissance and strike forces operating along the entire line of contact,” Poddubny said.

The journalist attributes the success of Russian defenses first and foremost to effective battle management and effective interaction between intelligence and the men manning the weapons.

However, Poddubny urges against prematurely celebrating the fact that Ukraine is throwing in its elite reserves into the fight.

“There’s nothing good in the fact that the enemy has reserves. It’s not a good thing, of course, that the enemy brings fresh reserves in and withdraws for replenishment and restoration those combat units which, thanks to the heroic actions of our fighters, have been bled dry. But this is how hostilities are now developing,” the war correspondent said.

Pointing to the Ukrainian government’s aggressive mobilization tactics as evidence of potential problems with manpower, Poddubny nevertheless urged not to downplay Kiev’s ability to retain its mobilization potential, including via a “serious punitive apparatus.” Even if recruits are poorly trained and in a “depressed moral and psychological state” due to being called up against their will, they can continue to pose a threat to the Russian side.