DATELINE ADDITION – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev walks near a Soviet-era fortifications during … [+]
During an ostensible operational pause in the first half of July, Russian forces repeatedly attempted to capture the city of Siversk, thirteen miles east of recently occupied Lyschansk. Though Siversk only had a pre-war population of 11,000, its capture would open a gateway for Russian forces to advance on the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, as well as a new southward road from which these could assail Bakhamut—all key objectives.
SIVERSK, DONETSK PROVINCE, UKRAINE, JULY 04: Ukrainian serviceman ride on top of a 2S1 self … [+]
But though Russian officials claimed the capture of Siversk on July 13, photos proved it remained under Ukrainian control the following day. Then on July 15, Ukrainian defenders repelled a concerted Russian attack involving DPR separatists, Wagner mercenaries and Russian regular forces, supported by attack helicopters and fighter bombers on July 15. The small city remains a locus of Russian attacks into the third week of July.
A video posted in the aftermath of the failed July 15 attack, showed troops from Ukraine’s 81st Air Assault Brigade and the National Guard’s Omega special forces detachment recovering a unit patch from several dead Russian soldier.
The patch, sporting the crossed barrels of a World War I vintage Maxim machine gun and old-fashioned cannons, had a curious story to tell: it was the emblem of the 18th Machine Gun and Artillery Division (MGAD), the only unit of its kind in the Russian military and a seeming throwback to the World Wars.
Among agreements arrived at by United States, Great Britain and Russia at Yalta in February 1945, … [+]
The 18th MGAD’s unique organization reflects its (usually) specialized role: the defense of the Kuril islands, which Russia seized from Japan using amphibious landing ships secretly supplied by the United States in the closing days of World War II.
As Tokyo never relinquished its claim to the islands, and Russia’s military had firsthand experience in how the islands could be captured by amphibious assault, in the 1970s Moscow saw fit to fortify the archipelago, including situating dozens of outdated tanks in fixed concrete firing positions.
Thus the 18th MGAD was equipped for a purely static, defensive role with heavy weapons in fixed positions overlooking potential beaches for an amphibious attack, and just enough personnel to man them. With just 3,500 troops, the unit has roughly one-third or one-fourth the total personnel of an ordinary division.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev walks near a Soviet-era fortifications during his visit to … [+]
While the 18th no longer really specializes in machine guns, it does have substantial artillery assets, as well as supporting tanks and some mobile infantry in lightly armed and armored MT-LB tracked APCs (usually reserved for lower-priority Russian forces.)
The presence of 18th MGAD troops in Ukraine was first reported on July 4 in a daily briefing by Ukrainian presidential advisor Aleksei Arestovych. Military historian Tom Cooper estimates one or two battalion tactical groups (BTGs) from the 18th MGAD were active in the July fighting so far. This lean division could likely only generate around 4 BTGs from its personnel.
Thus Russia may have stripped away a substantial portion of its Pacific island garrisons 4,700 miles to the west to serve as assault troops in Ukraine—a role those soldiers weren’t equipped to perform.
But Russia is scrambling to fill in a desperate shortage of infantry so as to exploit any operational momentum in Eastern Ukraine. For now, it remains unclear which subunits of the 18th were sent, and what heavy equipment these personnel brought with them (if any) or were furnished with upon arrival in the European warzone.
UPDATED: An interview of a captured Russian soldier based in the Kuriles indicates at least one (under-strength) company with 94 personnel out of a claimed garrison of 500 troops, presumably from either the 18th Division’s 49th Regiment or its HQ, deployed to Ukraine in June.
The soldier in question claims to have officially been a specialist operator of an SBR-3 ground surveillance radar, but had never used the equipment which was not transported to Ukraine. His company traveled to Ukraine by military cargo plane over five days (transfers: Iturup-Khabarovsk-Amur-Irkutsk-Omsk-Belgorod) and received a special pay raise of $56 per day in Ukraine.
Upon arriving in June 9, his unit waited several days for ground transportation, during which he claims 20 personnel were wounded or killed by “pretty accurate” Ukrainian artillery fire. He was then dispatched into the village of Krasnopillia (northwest of Siversk and Sloviansk), where his subunit of 20 soldiers was told await reinforcements in a cramped basement. His unit waited there for five days under terrifying artillery fire, subsisting on dry rations and food preserves in the cellar, without any officers. “It was clear in the end we would all be killed,” he stated.
Finally Ukrainian troops closed in on their position, which was never reinforced. After the soldiers exchanged fire for a couple hours, Ukrainian troops began tossing in grenades, killing three and wounding or stunning the rest. Afterwards, 15 survivors agreed to surrender, and were taken into captivity by six Ukrainian soldiers.
The Machine Gun “Division”
Today, modern militaries near universally disperse machine guns and similar heavy weapons into small infantry units.
But during World I and II armies like those of Soviet Union, UK and Germany also maintained entire ‘machine gun battalions’ with 20 to 40 heavy, crew-served machineguns. While such units couldn’t assault enemy positions like an infantry unit, they could project formidable defensive firepower, as well as provide covering fire to support an attack. In practice, rather than deploying together on the battlefield, these battalions were usually split into separate companies to reinforce field units, or assigned to man fortified areas where lack of mobility was no problem.
During World War II, the 18th Machine Gun and Artillery Division fought in the famously hellish battle of Stalingrad, and later participated in the Red Army’s Manchurian offensive. It was later re-founded in 1978 with its current role as Russia’s first line of island defenses in the Pacific, with the bulk of the division on Iturup Island. The division’s frontline battalions used World War II-vintage IS-2 and IS-3 heavy tanks firing from fixed positions as well as 1950s-era T-54 tank turrets encased in concrete, as described in an article by Linnik Sergey.
(GERMANY OUT) Kurilen-Insel Iturup- 1996 (Photo by Köhn/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
By the 2010s, Russian analysts conceded the 18th was unlikely to hold out more than a few days if attacked by Japan or the United States. But Moscow at this time undertook a major modernization of the defenses. The 18th division’s ancient T-55s were replaced with T-72Bs, which have since begun being replaced with more modern T-80BVs or T-80BVMs. Even more importantly, new Kh-35 Bal and K-300 Bastion-P anti-ship missile batteries and S-300V4 surface-to-air missile systems under the 68th Corps gave the island garrisons a long-distance bite.
Currently, the 18th MGAD (or PulAD in Russian) consists of two Machine-Gun Artillery Regiments, as well as supporting units, all usually subordinated to the 68th Army Corps.
A document posted here, apparently circa 2017, appears to spell out the structure of its regiments, which the author has slightly modified below based on additional sources and recent developments.
Each Machine Gun Artillery Regiment includes:
Fortunately for Moscow, there is realistically no chance Japan will launch some kind of surprise invasion of the Kuril/Sakhalin islands. But the redistribution of lean garrison forces in East Asia for use as assault troops in Ukraine highlights how Russia is forced to strip its defenses of politically sensitive areas (including the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and in Armenia) to feed Putin’s voracious war.
Updated 4:19 pm on 7/20/2022 with new section regarding interview of Russian POW from Kurile islands.