Key Points: Despite ongoing fears of Russian aggression against NATO, Russian forces in Ukraine continue to demonstrate severe equipment shortages, resorting to golf carts, ATVs, and motorcycles for assaults.
-This reflects their massive losses—nearly 750,000 troops and significant numbers of tanks, aircraft, and naval vessels—over three years of war. Putin’s anticipated quick victory has devolved into costly attrition.
-Initially overstating military modernization, Russian units reverted to ineffective Soviet tactics. Recent failed attacks using civilian vehicles underscore their dire state, challenging assertions of imminent threats to NATO.
-Russia’s military credibility appears severely diminished, highlighting substantial readiness issues amid devastating battlefield realities.
Russia Has to Use Golf Carts for Ukraine Attacks
While many respected news sources continued to push the narrative that Putin could attack NATO within six months, the situation on the ground in Ukraine isn’t showing any encouraging signs, as Russian troops are still using golf carts and motorcycles to assault “Mad Max” style, Ukrainian positions.
The “Special Military Operation” that Putin planned to take Kyiv in a few days and the entire country in a couple of weeks has dragged on for more than three years. Russian casualty numbers have been kept from the population as much as Putin can because they are staggering.
Russia’s Losses Are Incredibly High
Russia has lost nearly 750,000 troops dead, wounded, or missing. They’ve thrown Chechens, North Koreans, and now Chinese “volunteers” into the meat grinder that is entirely of its own making.
The number of tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters, aircraft, and naval ships has been staggering. The vaunted Black Sea Fleet has rendered combat ineffective by a country without any semblance of a Navy.
And this is going to attack NATO? Conventionally, Russia’s military is years, not months, away from that capability unless they plan on using golf carts to invade Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
However, Ukraine’s claims of Russian casualty numbers are artificially inflated. But not by a whole lot.
Russia Fooled the West With the “Modernization” Of the Military
Since 2008, we’ve been snookered by the supposed Russian modernization of their military. Junior unit leaders and professional non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were going to have more operational freedom to accomplish their missions.
Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs), an idea dating back to the 1990s, were introduced in 2012 to generate effective combat power from brigades by concentrating contract personnel into a battalion-sized unit. BTGs generally comprise a tank or infantry battalion reinforced with armor, artillery, air defense, electronic warfare, and other combat support assets.
None of this mattered a bit in the invasion of Ukraine. Russian units repeatedly employed mind-numbing tactics, either committing all their forces to one road or assaulting in mass formations across open ground. Combined Arms Battalions, such as those used by the US Army, scarcely resemble how the Russians use theirs.
Once everything went to hell in a handbasket, they reverted back to their roots, the old Soviet style of massing artillery and assaulting, with Brigade Commanders leading attacks instead of Majors or Captains. The West fell for the proverbial “Banana in the Tailpipe” regarding Russian modernization.
Reduced to Golf Carts, ATVs, and Motorcycles For Attacks
So high are Russian armor losses that they are forced to dust off relics of the Cold War, such as T-62s and T-54/55s, and modernize them, then ship them off to Ukraine.
Last summer, the Russians attacked “Mad Max” style, the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk, a key logistics hub. They used cheap Chinese golf carts designed to resemble a Hummer, but they were still golf carts. The attacking unit didn’t achieve a surprise or come close to a breakthrough. It was a slaughter. Russia lost 1,100 troops in a single day, with heavy losses in tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery.
As one can see coming, all five golf carts were destroyed. The well-defended Ukrainian lines comprising units of the Ukrainian 4th Tank Brigade, 30th Mechanized Brigade, and 100th Territorial Defense Brigade routed the attack.
This desperate attempt to gain the initiative is why Russian losses are approaching an untenable status. Struggling to replace destroyed armored vehicles with new ones—either newly built or pulled out of long-term storage—the Kremlin is equipping more units with civilian-style vehicles, including the Chinese-made Desertcross 1000-3 ATVs and Chinese and Belarusian dirt bikes.
Trying to use these vehicles in a conventional attack is suicidal. They are used for specific missions or in special operations units. But that wasn’t a one-time use of golf carts. The Russians have continued their usage.
Earlier this month, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated in its daily report on the conflict for yesterday that a Ukrainian tactical group had claimed on Monday that Russian forces recently conducted a company-sized mechanized assault near Yasenove, a village in Pokrovsk, an attempt to seize the village of Bohdanivka, Troitske, a rural settlement in Sloboda; and Horikhove, another village.
The Ukrainian defenders reported that they destroyed two Russian tanks, two armored personnel carriers, four all-terrain vehicles, and four motorcycles and killed 50 troops during the assault.
The ISW added: “Additional geolocated footage published on April 7 shows that Ukrainian forces repelled another company-sized Russian mechanized assault near Sribne (southwest of Pokrovsk) on April 6 and damaged three armored vehicles and five tanks during the assault.
The commander of a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Pokrovsk direction stated on April 8 that Russian forces have recently begun using more armored vehicles in the area but have also resorted to using motorcycles and golf carts to make advances.”
Putin has continued to make noise that the Russians are winning the war and has generally rebuffed any attempts at peace talks. These are not the actions of a country that is winning. Nor is there any one who is going to attack NATO in the next six months.
About the Author:
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
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