The Ukrainian army is said to have a unit with special equipment from Sweden. So far, this had not yet appeared at the front. Now there are first indications.
She should be ambitious and as inconspicuous as possible. The brigade that the Ukrainian army command set up in the spring. What is special about the unit: It was equipped with valuable equipment from Swedish military stocks and its soldiers trained in Sweden to form one of the “most powerful combat units” that Ukraine has, as the British “Times” reported.
The Swedish brigade is said to have eight Archer 155mm howitzers, ten Stridsvagn122 main battle tanks, a Swedish version of the German Leopard 2A5 and 50 CV90 infantry fighting vehicles with 40mm guns, Swedish media reported. These are some of the most effective and modern weapon systems available to the Swedish Army. They are to be formed into a powerful elite unit in the fight against the Russian army in Ukraine.
In all, the shipment from Stockholm was worth $1.5 billion, but little has been made of the military aid from Scandinavia. The operation was to be “off the books,” that is, to remain under the radar. And she is to this day. Because the brigade has not yet been seen on any front section, only individual vehicles of the Swedish delivery were sighted as part of smaller sub-units.
Military experts wonder when Ukraine will open the brigades (Note: the smallest large military unit with a strength of 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers) with Western equipment and which plan the Ukrainian military leadership is pursuing. A total of nine out of twelve newly formed brigades were equipped with the latest western technology, a large part of their 36,000 soldiers trained in western countries, while the three remaining newly formed large formations were equipped with equipment from Soviet stocks of the Ukrainian army.
So far, the army leadership around General Valery Saluschnyj has only sent a few of the units heavily armed by NATO into the field. With good reason, as it turned out.
Almost all crew members survived
One of the flagship units with western materiel gained notoriety in early June when it came under heavy fire in a minefield near Mala Tokmachka and lost numerous valuable weapon systems in the process. Within a few minutes, three Finnish armored mine clearance vehicles, four Leopard 2A6 tanks from Germany, 17 American Bradley armored personnel carriers and a Wisent infantry fighting vehicle went up in flames under the blows of Russian attack helicopters and artillery. Almost all crew members survived the attack, thanks to the western design of the weapon systems, which have highly resistant armor.
The failed advance of the unit in the Zaporizhia region caused an international sensation, not only did it mean the loss of urgently needed Western military equipment for Ukraine, but also the realization that the counter-offensive apparently could not be carried out as planned. The Ukrainian army lacks the necessary air and artillery support to overcome the heavily fortified Russian positions.
“This is the most difficult part of the counteroffensive for the Ukrainian military,” Dara Massicot, military expert at the American Rand Corporation, recently told the New York Times. “It is the stage when the Russian armed forces are able to fully utilize the strategic advantages they have left, namely air support and massive artillery reserves. Only if the Ukrainians achieve a breakthrough [durch die russischen Befestigungslinien] create, the dynamic could change fundamentally,” Massicot continued.
