As the green is approaching, the Russians are desperately trying to pick up the keys to Ukraine’s defences, relying on drone operators, long-range self-propelled artillery systems, and killing zones in which cassettes, remote mining, drone action, and cannon fire all reinforce each other’s effectiveness.
Motorcycles are used for this task, in particular, as supplies from China, confiscated at impound lots, are seized throughout Russia.
It is a popular belief that this is exclusively Moscow’s depletion of equipment.
But it’s not necessarily just that – there have been no massive armour attacks recently. The standard losses are no more than a dozen tanks, no more than two dozen infantry fighting vehicles per day.
This is a lot, it significantly exceeds Russia’s ability to restore and produce vehicles, but it still does not undermine Russia’s ability to launch a mechanised offensive.
At the same time, there have been only a few major attempts to push the line, including a recent attack on the Pyatykhatky–Shcherbaky–Malaya Tokmachka line near Orikhiv, where units of the 58th Army of the Russian Federation lost 29 APCs, IFVs and tanks in four hours of fighting.
Although they broke through to Mala Tokmachka and most of them even left, such attacks are dangerous.
If the Russians had shown a little more initiative, we would have had to fight street battles for the village.
And since Stalingrad, we know that in close street battles, it is not the training and motivation of the infantry that decides the outcome, but the mass, number and speed of the reserves.
The main thing is that the enemy is gathering equipment, making fire teams of experienced pilots, reconnaissance and strike teams, and now training motorcyclists.
For the summer campaign, when it will be possible to disperse under the cover of vegetation, hide electronic warfare devices, and increase the survival of anti-aircraft units in the last kilometre.
Motorcyclists have their own niche. Not necessarily, as in the famous video, where the first motorcycle is deliberately placed in a spiral of egoza, and the rest use it as a springboard.
It can be different – as a supply, as a palliative way to quickly cross the danger zone, and as an option to distract attention and discharge our drones in the air, giving time for the landing on the BMP.
However, this is anything but just the depletion of equipment.
There are 10–15 people on the BMP with the troops: if the vehicle is hit by one FPV, they will be withdrawn from the assault, some will be killed or wounded. It’s not a 100% guarantee – there are mechanics-drivers who have survived five or six drone hits – there was simply no detonation and the cumulative jet passed by. But the attack will definitely end for them.
The same number of people on motorcycles would require six UAVs.
In reality, it’s more, because electronic warfare suppression, weather, misses – you need to understand that a flight does not equal a strike.
The time spent in the killbox is quite different. The speed of the boxes on rough terrain, where everything is not obvious with mines and they can be placed right in the process, is no more than 30–35 km/h.
A motorbike has a higher speed, and while the crews from the depths react and the on-duty crews hunt for scattered motorcyclists, you can jump out of the dangerous area.
It is better for the enemy to fight in the buildings or enter the trenches and holes – there, drones cannot use drops as widely, it is more difficult to separate friendly targets from enemy ones, and there is less risk of artillery damage.
It is possible to break through and get the pilots. In many places, external pilots are already in direct contact, in many places – in the immediate tactical rear, to raise drones from the pits, spend as little time as possible flying to the battlefield, and reach further into the columns, reaching the frontlines of the attack.
Trading the lives of motorcyclists, even experienced ones, for the lives of any of our pilots is a course the Kremlin is happy with.
The ways to fight motorcycles only seem obvious. We need the synergy of several means of destruction: cluster munitions, mines, FPVs, heavy infantry weapons.
Work out the limits of remote minefields and, in principle, wider minefields against infantry, especially with guided systems.
Barrage fire 60–120 mm.
Protecting your pilots in the trenches with vaults with sprinkles and nets so that most of the equipment, except for the antennas, is underground.
The tried and tested classics are pegs behind the egoza, pits, ditches.
But in some places, there will be limits on used equipment, in others there will be a shortage of people and it will be impossible to use heavy equipment, in others there will be fresh organisms that do not have experienced engineers and sappers.
So it will be different. Not everywhere they will unwind the reel on motorbikes.
The main thing that everyone should understand is that they are preparing for the summer campaign.
All the talk about an agreement will remain talk – an agreement does not mean sending a hundred motorcyclists to their deaths and killing a battalion in four hours of fighting in an area where it is most difficult and inconvenient to advance.
As soon as the off-road conditions are over and the Russians think they are ready, they will strike – they will try to turn the front and move it into a manoeuvrable phase. If this fails, then acceptance will begin sometime in the autumn.
The Russians are in a hurry: economic problems are creeping in to suck people out of the military–industrial complex, hydrocarbon prices are falling, and they realise that Europe is starting to turn the wheel on industry and that they have failed to knock out Ukrainian plants and energy. So the summer will be hot.
