Russia is using "Mad Max" bikes to dodge Ukrainian drones after losing more than 15,000 armoured vehicles - as their war supplies continue to dwindle.
According to the Ukrainian Centre for Defence, the Russians are “employing light vehicles such as motorcycles and ATVs to quickly traverse the distance from their attack launch positions to the front lines of the Ukrainian defence forces.” However, these vehicles are extremely vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery, missiles, and drones.
Images have emerged of the bikes with sidecars and bizarre metal cages covering them - along with some camouflage netting. They've been compared to the vehicles used in the post-apocalyptic Mad Max film franchise but the 70-horsepower ATV or a 50-horsepower motorbike is unable to withstand much armour without losing its speed.
Many of the vechiles have been kitted out (X)They were first deployed in Spring but they were “beaten in the teeth,” according to the Ukrainian 79th Air Assault Brigade. “The armoured motorcycle was one of the many concepts that died with the interwar era,” Tanks Encyclopedia told Forbes.
“Their increased weight and relatively high cost, coupled with limited combat potential, meant that their place in armoured fighting vehicle history resulted in little more than a footnote.” It comes as Ukraine imposed emergency power shutdowns in most of the country on Sunday, a day after Russia unleashed large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure and claimed it made gains in the eastern Donetsk province.
World's coldest city left without heating in -44C freeze as Putin funds war
The shutdowns were in place in all but three regions of Ukraine following Saturday’s drone and missile attack on energy targets that injured at least 19 people.
Comparisons have been made with "Mad Max" (Warner Bros. Feature Productions Pty Limited/Domain Pictures, LLC. All Rights Reserved)Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo said the shutdowns affected both industrial and household consumers. Sustained Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in recent weeks have forced the government to institute nationwide rolling blackouts.
Without adequate air defences to counter assaults and allow for repairs, though, the shortages could still worsen as need spikes in late summer and the bitter-cold winter. Among the most significant recent strikes were an April barrage that damaged Kyiv’s largest thermal power plant and a massive attack on May 8 that targeted power generation and transmission facilities in several regions.
Ukrainian air intelligence soldier carries a drone in the direction of Bakhmut, Ukraine (Anadolu via Getty Images)Following Saturday’s barrage, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday that air defences had shot down all 25 drones launched overnight. Russia claimed Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Umanske in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region.
Russia’s coordinated new offensive has centred on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, but seems to include testing Ukrainian defences in Donetsk farther south, while also launching incursions in the northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions. In Russia, six people were injured in shelling in the city of Shebekino in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said Sunday.
He also said that a local official, the deputy head of the Korochansky district, had been killed by “detonation of ammunition.” He gave no details. In the neighbouring Kursk region, three people were injured Sunday when an explosive device was dropped from a drone, according to acting regional head Alexey Smirnov.
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