Crewing a small boat has become recently one of the most dangerous jobs in the Ukrainian military, The Forbes reports.
In the month and a half since the AFU’s 35th Marine Brigade first forced the wide Dnieper River and seized a bridgehead at Krynky on the left bank, the marines and support troops have lost numerous vessels.
If open-source analyst Andrew Perpetua is to be believed, about 50 boats in total were damaged or sunk.
The latest loss is perhaps the most unusual. On Christmas Eve, the Russian military circulated a video of an explosive-laden drone with a first-person view striking a Ukrainian BMK-T, presumably somewhere near Krynky.
The BMK-T is a ten-metre long 460 horsepower pusher boat designed during the Soviet era to guide pontoon bridges. Up until the early 1990s, the Soviets built many BMK-Ts, and some of them ended up in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the Forbes.
Just because the Ukrainians are racing BMK-Ts across the Dnieper and back does not mean they are in the business of building a pontoon bridge. Yes, the Ukrainian army has a special pontoon-bridge regiment – the 808th. However, to all appearances, it is not even planned to be transferred across the Dnieper to Krynky.
Firstly, the width of the river at Krynky is 300 metres – apparently, this is too much for an assault pontoon. Moreover, Russian drones, bombs and artillery would surely make building a pontoon bridge unnecessarily dangerous.
Thus, the Ukrainian Army and Marine Corps support the 35th Brigade in Krynky with small boats, occasional armoured ferries and, as a last resort, BMK-T tugs. The more vessels the Russians damage or sink, the heavier the Ukrainians’ desperation – and the more strange and suspicious vessels they will throw into supplying the Krynky bridgehead.
However, the situation on the Dnieper for the AFU may improve. After moving more effective long-range air defences into the area, the Ukrainian Air Force has shot down five Russian bombers south of the Dnieper in just over a month – including at least three Su-34s that were reportedly lining up to bomb the Marines in Krynky.
Following these losses, the Russian Air Force suspended air raids on Krynky – at least temporarily. This is certainly a relief for the crews of the Ukrainian vessels.
