At the beginning of the war, the 200th Rifle Brigade for the Kremlin is to capture the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. But the attempt fails. Almost seven and a half months later, there is hardly anything left of the association.
The 200th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade used to be one of the most experienced and well-equipped units in the Russian army. Stationed in the Murmansk region, they guarded the Russian nuclear arsenal on the border with Finland. But after being transferred to Ukraine, the brigade is said to have suffered such heavy losses that, according to a report by the Washington Post, it is practically "extinct". In its research, the newspaper relies, among other things, on internal Russian documents, interviews with members of the brigade and reports by Ukrainian troops who opposed the association.
Accordingly, at the beginning of the Russian invasion, the 200th tried in vain to capture the city of Kharkiv. But already on the first day of the war, units of the brigade were caught in Ukrainian ambushes. Dozens of soldiers were killed or wounded and equipment, including tanks and mobile Grad rocket launchers, was destroyed. The brigade had already been transferred back to Russia in May to regroup. According to internal documents, fewer than 900 soldiers were left in two tactical battalion groups at the end of May. According to Western experts, the association went to war with 1,400 men.
Over the summer, the brigade was reinforced by a "mixed volunteer battalion" from Murmansk. Among the newcomers were sailors and logisticians who had little or no experience in ground combat. The experienced soldiers and career officers who went into battle in state-of-the-art T-80 tanks early in the war gave way to a contingent of poorly trained combatants who were forced into service with poor or outdated equipment, the Washington Post writes.
"The unit is in a state of disrepair," a brigade soldier told the newspaper. He and other newly drafted recruits were initially shown "painted helmets from 1941 and protective vests without plates". "They don't even train us. They just tell you: 'You're a rifleman now. Here's a machine gun.'"
After returning to Ukraine, the 200th Rifle Brigade was surprised by the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region in September. The association is said to have again suffered heavy losses, especially in battles for the city of Kupjansk. In October, remnants of the association then moved into positions in the Luhansk region.
After the withdrawal from the Kharkiv region, only fragments of a single battalion remained, made up of a hodgepodge of soldiers who bore little resemblance to the experienced men who left for Ukraine seven months earlier, Ukrainian Lt. Col. Pavlo said Fedosenko of the "Washington Post". "There is nothing left of this brigade," he added. "She's completely wiped out."
Western security officials share the assessment. Because so many career soldiers and high-ranking officers have fallen, it will take years to rebuild the association, a high-ranking European intelligence official told the newspaper.
According to the Washington Post, the exact losses of the 200th Brigade are difficult to determine because the association does not publish any figures. Nevertheless, there are indications of how badly the brigade had been decimated. In late August, regional authorities in Murmansk passed a law providing free meals to schoolchildren whose fathers or mothers were killed or wounded in Ukraine. According to the authorities, 1,274 children were eligible for free meals.
