Ukraine’s Unseen Army: The Mechanics Who Keep the Tanks Rolling

A battered employee’s van whizzed backwards and forwards alongside a village street close to the entrance line in southern Ukraine, looking out. It screeched to a halt, and three males unloaded heavy tools and disappeared into the undergrowth.

What they had been on the lookout for, dug in and hidden underneath the bushes, had been three hulking British-made armored automobiles often called Mastiffs. Supplied to the Ukrainian Army for its try and retake Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine, the Mastiffs had been in want of a service.

“They call us the dog handlers,” Serhii Ivanov, the chief of the upkeep crew, joked, referring to a nickname that happened as a result of most of the armored automobiles they service had been named after breeds of canine: Mastiffs, Huskies, Wolfhounds.

Behind the hundreds of Ukrainian troops assembled alongside the 100-mile entrance line for the counteroffensive is a small military of mechanics, engineers and weapon technicians liable for maintaining Ukraine’s rising fleet of Western-made tanks, armored automobiles and different tools in working order.

They work in forest camps or in disused buildings a number of miles from the entrance line, or as cellular breakdown groups, taking their providers to army models the place they’re deployed to keep away from towing tools on lengthy journeys again to base and even to factories overseas.

“Vehicles are needed at the front now, and this way allows us to get them back quickly to the front line,” mentioned Maj. Valerii Shershen, head of communications on the Ukrainian logistics command. Quoting Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, he added, “Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.”

Not not like fight medics who danger their lives day by day to convey out the wounded, mechanics have been venturing onto the battlefield, navigating minefields and shell hearth, to retrieve and restore damaged down or bombed-out automobiles.

One deputy battalion commander spoke of not less than six mechanics from his unit who had been killed in latest months.

Mr. Ivanov was head of the technical division at Mitsubishi Motors Ukraine till he left his job and “nice office” within the capital, Kyiv, to hitch the territorial protection power when Russia invaded 16 months in the past.

He served as a platoon commander for months till the military’s logistics command plucked him out of the trenches to assist preserve the rising variety of NATO automobiles provided to Ukraine, lots of them outfitted with refined electronics and diagnostics.

Since it started in early June, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has suffered heavy casualties, with scores of automobiles broken and destroyed on dense minefields and underneath heavy aerial and artillery bombardment.

The losses have been a extreme blow to Ukraine and have compelled the army command to regulate its techniques. In the meantime, mechanics and engineers have been racing to retrieve the wrecked NATO automobiles, in addition to captured Russian tools, to get them again up and dealing.

In a forest camp belonging to the thirty seventh Marine Brigade not too long ago, not removed from the entrance line, battle-scarred automobiles awaiting restore had been tucked underneath bushes and draped in camouflage netting.

“We were ready for damaged equipment — it’s war,” mentioned Ihor, 57, deputy commander of weapons and upkeep, who makes use of the decision signal Blago and gave solely his first title for safety causes.

He walked a crew of journalists from The New York Times across the camp, which was divided into separate areas for repairing armored automobiles, tanks and artillery items. There was additionally a testing monitor.

Some of the automobiles had been past restore, their wheels and engines mangled from mine explosions and their our bodies ripped open by rocket and artillery hearth. But Ihor mentioned that his groups had managed to restore over 40 NATO armored automobiles and eight tanks within the camp previously month, typically taking components from destroyed ones.

“We try to reuse everything,” he mentioned. He got here to an American-made Oshkosh armored automobile that had been burned out. “We can’t fix it,” he famous, “but it will become a donor — its parts will allow us to repair another seven vehicles.”

The Ukrainian forces have by necessity made use of captured Russian armor and weaponry. In one yard, the top of weapons and upkeep for the thirty fifth Marine Brigade, who makes use of the decision signal Hammer, mentioned that the brigade had captured greater than 20 Russian automobiles previously six weeks of combating.

Among the “trophies” had been eight Russian multipurpose combating automobiles, which the brigade had by no means had earlier than, and a T-72 tank. “Without the Russian captured vehicles, we would not manage to keep going,” he mentioned.

Yet Ukrainian troops have began to understand the safety afforded by the sturdy armor of the assorted NATO automobiles, which saves extra lives than the previous Soviet tools, Hammer and different mechanics mentioned. Even when troopers and marines took heavy casualties in latest battles within the counteroffensive, lots of them survived contained in the NATO automobiles, marines mentioned.

Critically, the swift repairs had been maintaining the NATO automobiles in use, Hammer mentioned.

“The Russians can’t understand what’s going on,” he mentioned. “A few days and the vehicle is back on the battlefield. In this way, they become indestructible.”