ANATOLII STEPANOV
- Ukrainian troops fighting Russian armor used the belts holding up their pants to load rockets when a critical tool broke.
- The war story comes from the new book "Our Enemies Will Vanish."
- The troublesome rockets were later replaced by HIMARS, which "are everything the Uragan isn't," the author writes.
Before Ukraine got its hands on US-made M142 HIMARS, weapons from this century that shook the Russians when they arrived, they had Soviet BM-27 Uragan rocket artillery from the 1970s, weaponry that hits hard but is imprecise and, at times, troublesome.
Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov's new book "Our Enemies Will Vanish" describes an early battle near Nizhyn, outside the northern city of Chernihiv, in which Ukrainian troops were forced to get creative when critical Uragan equipment broke in the middle of a fight with advancing Russian armor.
ANATOLII STEPANOV
The day before the war broke out and Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Valentyn Koval, a 22-year-old lieutenant commanding a unit of Uragan multiple-launch rocket systems, was sent into the forest for training exercises, but they brought a suspicious amount of the 220 mm ammunition, more than would be needed simply for drills.
By that point, alarm bells had been sounding for months about a troubling build-up of tens of thousands of Russian military personnel and significant amounts of equipment along Ukraine's borders.
Satellite images from late January and early February did not look good at all for Ukraine, a country few suspected had any hope of survival if Russia invaded. Ukrainian leadership tried to maintain calm, but to anyone paying attention, it was crystal clear what was coming.
Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies
And on February 24, 2022, it came. The Russians picked up where they left off eight years earlier and launched a large-scale invasion. Ukrainian cities were struck by barrages that were followed by Russian columns crossing the border.
Throughout the war, Ukrainian forces have often relied on local civilians for critical, timely intelligence, and that was no different for Koval, who got a message from an elderly man.
"The grandpa kept saying: not now, not now, not just yet," the lieutenant told Trofimov. "And then he went: I see the damnedest foes, they're on the road, fire on them, son, now."
At that moment, his unit unleashed hell on a Russian tank convoy, dealing significant damage, according to the Wall Street Journal reporter's retelling.
"Our Enemies Will Vanish" describes Koval's unit firing continuously without rest. As one Uragan launcher fired, others were being reloaded and serviced for another round. That tempo put significant stress on an important piece of equipment, a crane on a separate vehicle needed to load the heavy 620-pound 220 mm rockets critical to keeping the Russians at bay.
As orders came down to finish off the Russian tank convoy, the battery's crane broke, leaving the unit with no immediate way to load the rocket artillery.
ANATOLII STEPANOV
"Some of Koval's crewmen had served in Donbas in 2014 and were used to nonstandard solutions — so they pulled out their leather belts," Trofimov writes, referring to the fighting in eastern Ukraine that preceded Russia's full-scale invasion.
"Straining their backs, eight men using belts managed to manually pull up and load the rockets," his book says, noting that the remaining elements of the Russian column were also "turned into a smoldering wreck."
This war story is one of many similar anecdotes offering an account of the conflict, its up and downs, in "Our Enemies Will Vanish," a title which refers to a line from Ukraine's national anthem.
There are stories of tragedy, resistance, resilience, and heroism. The stories include moments where determination saved the day, moments like this, and those where that just wasn't enough, such as in Buzki Park in Kherson, where the civilian volunteers were massacred and the bodies were ransomed back to shattered families. An overarching theme in the Trofimov's book is that for better or worse the Ukrainians, soldiers and civilians alike, have been fighting back.
ANATOLII STEPANOV
After the Ukrainians proved that they could, against all expectations, hold out against the Russian threat, having successfully defeated the assault on Kyiv, Ukraine was able to persuade the West to equip it with more firepower.
Its forces received High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, with GPS-guided rockets from the US in June 2022, roughly doubling the range of Ukraine's rocket artillery and boosting accuracy in a way that changed the game for artillery units. Trofimov writes the HIMARS "are everything the Uragan isn't."
In particular, he notes, the US-made weapon system auto-loads missile pods, "meaning that it doesn't require a separate loader that can break down and sometimes needs to be replaced by eight men with belts."
Koval's unit received four HIMARS and promptly began attacking Russian positions that were previously safe, from ammunition depots to command posts. "The entire front line was ours," he told Trofimov. "There were so many targets everywhere."
The units nighttime attacks reportedly led to the emergence of the term "HIMARS o'clock."
By July, the US military was openly praising the effects of the weapons, and a senior US military official told media that "there has been significant impact on what's going on, on the front lines."
Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Months later, Koval's unit played a role in the liberation of Kherson, a city on the Dnipro River where a land mine would claim the young unit commander's left leg but not his life.
The war in Ukraine is approaching two years of tough fighting. Russian and Ukrainian forces have paid in blood for ground. There have been steep casualties, significant equipment losses, and tremendous amounts of destruction.
Ukraine's future is uncertain, as is the fate of vital security assistance keeping the country's war efforts afloat, but to a point repeatedly made in Trofimov's book, Ukraine has shown resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. And it continues to do so.
Years after Ukraine was expected to fall, its armed forces are still resisting conquest and fighting against Russia's invasion to see a day when its enemies at last vanish.
from All Content from Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/ukrainian-soldiers-used-their-belts-to-load-the-620-pound-rockets-needed-to-kill-russian-tanks-2024-1
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