Ein Artikel aus der New York Times über die Verteidigung von Nikolaev mit interessanten Details zu den ersten Stunden und Tagen des russischen Angriffs aus der Krim:
Proud Band of Ukrainian Troops Holds Russian Assault at Bay — for Now“Few expected such strength from our people,” said a Ukrainian colonel whose soldiers have repelled a Russian attack on the port city of Mykolaiv for three days. [...]
For three days, Russian forces had fought to take Mykolaiv, but by Sunday, Ukrainian troops had driven them back from the city limits and retaken the airport, halting the Russian advance along the Black Sea, at least temporarily. By Monday morning Russian forces had resumed their attack. [...]
But it is the fierce and, according to many analysts, unexpectedly capable defense by Ukrainian forces, who are significantly outgunned, that has largely stalled the Russian advance and, for now, prevented Mykolaiv from falling into Russian hands. For three days, troops from the Ukrainian Army’s 59th Brigade, together with other military and territorial defense units, have been defending Mykolaiv from Russian attack along several fronts, facing down punishing artillery barrages, helicopter attacks and rocket strikes, some of which have hit civilian neighborhoods. [...]
Despite near-frantic warnings from the White House of an imminent Russian invasion in the weeks before it actually happened on Feb. 24, the initial attack took Colonel Stetsenko’s unit by surprise, he said. His brigade was at a training exercise near the border with Crimea outside a town called Oleshky and only half assembled when it received the order to prepare for battle. “If we had received the order three or four days before, we could have prepared, dug trenches,” he said.
That delay nearly led to his brigade’s destruction in the first hours of the war, he said.
The Russian force that poured out of Crimea was five times the size of his Ukrainian unit and quickly overwhelmed it. His brigade had no air support and few functional antiaircraft systems, because most had been sent to Kyiv to defend the capital. Much of the brigade’s tanks and armored fighting vehicles were destroyed in the initial attack by Russian aviation.The brigade’s commander, Col. Oleksandr Vinogradov, had lost touch with military leadership and was forced to make decisions on the fly, said Colonel Stetsenko, who was with the commander throughout.
Encircled and suffering heavy losses from strikes by Russian fighter jets, Colonel Vinogradov ordered his remaining tank and artillery units to punch a hole through a unit of Russian airborne assault troops that had positioned itself at the Ukrainian brigade’s rear. The maneuver allowed the main Ukrainian fighting force to cross a bridge over the Dnieper River and retreat west about 45 miles to Mykolaiv, where it could regroup and link up with other units to continue the fight.“The fighter jets of the enemy attacked our tanks, several tanks were hit and burned, and the rest remained and did not flee,” Colonel Stetsenko said. “They knew that behind them were other people, and they gave up their lives to break through the bridge to dig in on the other bank.” The tactic worked, but the costs were steep. By falling back to Mykolaiv, Colonel Stetsenko’s brigade had to sacrifice Kherson, which on March 2 became the first major city to fall to the Russian forces. They had no choice, Colonel Stetsenko said. If they had tried to defend Kherson, Russian forces could have flanked them and cut them off, opening a road to the west, and to Odessa. [...]
The New York Times Die 59. Motorisierten Brigade ist eine von mehreren neu aufgestellten ukrainischen motorisierten Brigaden:
59th Motorized Brigade, Haisyn Headquarters & Headquarters Company
9th Motorized Infantry Battalion "Vinnytsia"
10th Motorized Infantry Battalion "Polissya"
11th Motorized Infantry Battalion "Kyivan Rus"
Brigade Artillery Group
Headquarters & Target Acquisition Battery
Howitzer Artillery Battalion (D-20)
Anti-tank Artillery Battalion (MT-12 Rapira)
Anti-Aircraft Missile Artillery Battalion
Reconnaissance Company
Tank Company
Engineer Company
Maintenance Company
Logistic Company
Signal Company
Medical Company
Sniper Platoon
Wikipedia
