The US delivered more than 100 Bradleys to Ukraine, but nearly a third of them were destroyed or abandoned during the counter-offensive.
The open-source military research group Oryx said 34 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles were confirmed to have been left on the battlefield, damaged or destroyed in the more than a month Ukraine launched its counter-offensive operation.
Bradley is a modern armor equipped with powerful firepower, which can carry 10 infantrymen close to the enemy line to attack quickly to penetrate the line.
Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade is said to be the only unit staffing Bradley vehicles from the US. Leaked Pentagon documents in February showed that the 47th Brigade received a total of 99 aircraft, but the US is likely to provide more later. Some information indicates that this brigade has received at least 109 Bradley armored vehicles.
With Oryx’s statistics, Ukraine has lost almost a third of the US-supplied Bradley vehicles since they were first deployed on the battlefield. This shows the very high price Kyiv has to pay when conducting a counter-offensive operation.
The losses were not unexpected and seemed concentrated in the first few days of the counter-offensive in early June when Ukrainian troops tried to break through a line heavily mined by Russian troops, observers said. Some of the Bradleys were hit by mines while maneuvering, forcing the Ukrainians to leave them on the battlefield.
A group of Russian soldiers recently posted a video next to an intact Bradley vehicle, thanking the Ukrainian president for “providing armor” for them to confiscate.
However, many Ukrainian soldiers said the Bradleys saved their lives. “Thanks to it, I’m still here. If we had used some old armored personnel carriers, all of them would have lost their lives,” a Ukrainian soldier told ABC News last month.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to the President of Ukraine, admitted on July 14 that the Ukrainian army faced very difficult battles and that the country’s counter-offensive campaign was not making rapid progress. However, he affirmed that Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia until it withdraws its troops.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on July 11 that the Ukrainian army lost more than 26,000 soldiers and 3,000 units of weapons after more than a month of counterattack, including Leopard 2 tanks, Bradley armored vehicles and AMX-10RC.
