2 killed and 8 captured: Skala Battalion Captures Russian Positions Near Vuhledar

22 July, 2024 Captured soldiers 57th Infantry Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, July 2024. Photo credits: Butusov+ The assault group of the Skala Battalion conducted a night assault and knocked the Russian invaders out of their positions near Vuhledar.

Details of the operation were made public in a Butusov+ report. Soldiers of the 425th Assault Battalion Skala, during a night operation with an M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, broke into the positions of the Russian invaders in a rapid maneuver. The stormtroopers, equipped with night vision devices and thermal imagers, under the cover of drones, began mopping up the trenches held by ten soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 57th Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces.

During fighting at a close distance, the Ukrainian defenders eliminated two Russian soldiers. Having knocked them out, the soldiers of the Skala Battalion opened fire on the dugout where the group of invaders was hiding, forcing them to surrender.

The assault group of the 425th Assault Battalion Skala did not suffer any losses among its personnel or equipment during the operation.

Russian soldiers in captivity

Among captured soldiers, some were mobilized prisoners and convicted persons who were offered service in the army in exchange for amnesty. According to one of the POWs, his unit (1st Battalion) was partially composed of prisoners and ex-convicts. However, for example, the 3rd Battalion of the 57th Brigade was fully staffed by convicts from prisons.

Photo credits: Butusov+

The commander of the captured Russian group, Nikolai Vlasov, said that their company had an assault platoon of motorcyclists, which, however, was not effective. "The day before our battle, they had an assault, and no one among them managed to participate in it," Vlasov said. Given the difficulty of assaulting Ukrainian positions with mechanized vehicles, which are often destroyed by drones as they approach the battlefield, the invaders have started using the tactic of rapid attacks on motorcycles since May of this year.

The invaders rely on the speed of such assaults, which should reduce the time spent in the open and "outrun" the reaction time of soldiers in positions.

Such attacks often end with machine gun fire in the "gray zone" and are followed by artillery and attack drones.