Struggling to build, or reactivate from long-term storage, enough infantry fighting vehicles fully to equip front-line regiments and brigades, the Russian army late last year acquired 2,100 Desertcross 1000-3 all-terrain vehicles—heavy-duty golf carts, basically—from a Chinese firm.

It was possible to imagine the Russians deploying the 85-horsepower ATVs strictly in support roles miles behind the front line, where the 1.5-ton vehicles’ fragility and total lack of armor protection and heavy armament wouldn’t be a major liability.

Instead, the vehicle-starved Russians—who despite their staggering losses persist in attacking all along the 600-mile front line—are riding the Desertcrosses into combat. And getting massacred by drones.

Their only consolation is that they’re not getting killed even faster—by artillery.

One recent golf-cart attack ended in bloody disaster for a squad of seven Russian infantrymen when they assaulted toward Ukrainian positions around Berdychi, just west of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, on or before Friday.

The Strike Drones Company, which flies explosive first-person-view drones in support of the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade—the famed operator of Ukraine’s American-made Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Assault Breacher engineering vehicles—spotted the Russians, monitored them from the air then sniped them with FPVs.

And recorded the whole ridiculous engagement. “A short film about an elite Russian special forces that drove into Berdychi on a Chinese golf cart (no joke),” the company quipped when it released the edited footage on social media.

Abandoning mass mechanized assaults in the face of Ukrainian mines, artillery and drones, the Russian army these days mostly advances by sending small assault groups—a few vehicles hauling at most a couple dozen infantry—in back-to-back-to-back attacks.

The idea behind these modern-day “banzai charges” is to overwhelm Ukrainian forces not with sheer numbers, but with a relentless pace of attacks that—ideally for the Russians—ends with the Russian survivors clinging to a position that larger formations later can reinforce.

The problem, for the Russians, is that the initial banzai squads are alone at the line of contact—and extremely vulnerable when poorly supported. A purpose-built IFV such as a BMP or BTR can transport the banzai troops and back them up with auto-cannon fire while deflecting Ukrainian small-arms fire. A golf cart cannot do so.

So it’s worse than futile to deploy a Desertcross for a mechanized banzai charge. For the half-dozen or so infantry clinging to the golf cart, it pretty much is suicide.

Which is why what happened to those seven Russians in Berdychi should come as no surprise. Leaping from their Desertcross a few yards from an immobilized Assault Breacher, which the Ukrainians abandoned weeks ago and which now is a kind of landmark in central Berdychi, the Russians first sought refuge under the engineering vehicle’s nearly 70-ton bulk.

The Strike Drones Company sent it first FPV: two pounds of radi0-controlled plastic clutching a pound of explosives. A lucky shot from one of the Russians sent the FPV spinning out of control. It shattered on the Assault Breacher without exploding.

Realizing they were under aerial assault, the Russians popped smoke grenades—“like in cool action movies,” according to the Strike Drones Company—and ran to hide.

Four hid in the nearby exposed foundation of a demolished building. Another cowered in a shallow ravine. Two tried to shelter underneath the Assault Breacher. None survived as more FPVs barreled in. “All seven were eliminated by our kamikaze drones,” the Ukrainian company stated.

Pathetically, two terrified Russians burrowed into separate corners of the foundation and surrounded themselves with slabs of concrete. Trying and failing to hide from the overhead surveillance drone which never, even for an instant, lost sight of them.

An FPV angled into a narrow gap between concrete slabs and blew up one of the cowering Russians; another FPV ripped the legs off the other cowering Russian, leaving the maimed man to wiggle his stumps before bleeding out.

This one suicidal Desertcross attack isn’t some anomaly. All along the front in recent days, the Russians have ridden golf-carts into battle. Where they’ve succeeded, it mostly is because of the relentless glide-bombing, artillery shelling and drone raids that preceded the banzai charges.

“When combined with aerial bomb drops, artillery strikes and drone deployments, these assaults prove to be considerably taxing” on Ukrainian troops, Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained.

That the Ukrainians must plink individual Russians and their golf-carts with drones, instead of simply blasting them with a single 155-millimeter artillery shell, speaks to their ongoing struggle to acquire enough large-caliber ammunition—a struggle we mostly can blame on Russia-friendly Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, who have been blocking aid to Ukraine since October.

“The overall shortage of material resources in the defense forces limits their capacity to execute effective defensive operations, while providing the enemy with flexibility in conducting offensive operations,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted.

In that sense, the Russians are lucky. Yes, they’re sending men to die in golf-cart banzai raids. But these same men would die even faster if the Ukrainians had enough artillery ammo.

Sources:

1. 47th Mechanized Brigade: https://t.me/strikedronescompany/141

2. Ukraine Control Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=180u1IkUjtjpdJWnIC0AxTKSiqK4G6Pez&hl=en_US&ll=48.19284345450322%2C37.65671038309016&z=17

3. Frontelligence Insight: https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/03/20/want-to-know-how-ukraine-can-resist-russia-in-2024-look-to-bilohorivka/

4. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-22032024?utm_source=substack&publication_id=1598923&post_id=142871354&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=7jgcu&triedRedirect=true