The Ukrainian army's 100th Mechanized Brigade holds positions in or around Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka, which straddles the H20 highway threading between the ruins of Kostiantynivka northwest through Druzhkivka toward Kramatorsk, one of the last two big free cities in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.

This axis is arguably the locus of the most intensive fighting in Ukraine right now as the Russians throw troops and vehicles at Ukrainian defenses in the hope of breaking through to Kramatorsk and neighboring Sloviansk from the south. It should come as no surprise that the H20 and adjacent roads are choked with the burned-out husks of Russian and Ukrainian vehicles.

It's a problem, and the 100th Mechanized Brigade is solving it with sheer brute force. The brigade has attached a dozer blade to one of its drone-proofed armored vehicles, and is deploying the vehicle as a combat bulldozer. The dozer "push[es] the most difficult obstacle from the road and clears the way for other equipment," the 100th Mechanized Brigade stated.

Danger is constant. The same drones that littered the roads with destroyed vehicles also threaten the engineers whose job it is to clear the scorched hulks.

The 100th Mechanized Brigade is proud of its road-clearing engineers. It recently posted a drone video depicting the dozer in action in Druzhkivka, motoring out from under the partial protection of overhead anti-drone netting to shove destroyed vehicles off the H20.

The 100th, like many Ukrainian mechanized brigades, has an engineer battalion that supports its infantry and tank battalions. The engineers ride in an array of specialized vehicles for digging trenches, clearing earthen obstacles and mines, and towing damaged vehicles. And they can also convert practically any armored vehicle into a do-it-yourself combat engineer vehicle, or CEV, by attaching a dozer blade, like the one made by U.K. firm Pearson Engineering.

Pearson's General Purpose Blade "is suitable for clearing obstacles, urban roadblocks and rubble and it can also be used to move earth and fill craters," the company explained.

It's hard to say on the basis of one grainy drone video what kind of vehicle the 100th Mechanized Brigade fitted with a dozer blade for road-clearing duty. The brigade rides in Marder and M-2 infantry fighting vehicles, YPR-765 armored personnel carriers, and T-64, T-72, and T-80 tanks, among other types.

Special vehicles

If the unit has specialized CEVs, it's unclear what kind. The most common CEVs in Ukrainian service include the German Wisent and the Soviet IMR-2. The Ukrainians received a number of newer CEVs in the lead-up to their failed 2023 counteroffensive, including American Assault Breachers and Finnish Leopard 2Rs. But these vehicles suffered heavy losses while trying to lead tanks and fighting vehicles across dense Russian minefields. It seems no Assault Breachers or Leopard 2Rs are left in Ukrainian service.

Combat engineer vehicles, whether purpose-made or improvised, are in high demand on both sides of Russia's wider war on Ukraine. To take some of the pressure off, and safeguard human crews, the Ukrainians in particular are migrating some of the traditional tasks of a CEV to unmanned systems.

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These capabilities were dramatically on display when the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps launched Operation Vivaldi, its ultimately successful effort to push back a pair of Russian field armies along the northern approach to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, back in the spring.

Where before, engineering vehicles may have cleared the Russian minefields, the 3rd Army Corps sent in heavy ground robots equipped with mine-clearing metal flails. Other Ukrainian units have experimented with aerial drones as de facto route-clearance systems. Heavy bomber drones have flown ahead of vehicle columns, dropping grenades to clear Russian ambush drones that sit on the road, waiting to take off and ambush passing vehicles.

But no aerial drone can shove a multi-ton wreck off a road. And while remote-controlled heavy vehicles may eventually be up to the task, they're still fairly rare in the Ukrainian inventory. So for now, it takes a crewed bulldozer to scrape wreckage off the most important roads faster than drone strikes can add to the wreckage.

Ukrainian forces are making slow but tactically meaningful gains near Velyka Novosilka that could eventually threaten Russian supply lines in the south, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed on 25 October. The push has already pulled Russian naval infantry and tank units away from offensives elsewhere, according to a Ukrainian military observer ISW cites. The same observer cautions that the advance has slowed.

Russia keeps grinding toward Donbas's last big free cities, yet Ukraine has liberated more land than Russia captured since the start of fall. Each elite unit Moscow sends to plug a gap in the south is one it cannot throw at those cities.

Three villages along the Mokri Yaly River

Ukrainian units apparently pushed Russian troops out of Perebudova, Komar, and Fedorivka, Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets reported. He described weeks of intense fighting in the villages. Russian infantry still holds several houses on Perebudova's northeastern edge, he said.

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Southwest of Vesele, Ukrainian troops came within 3.1 km of Skudne. Between 12 and 24 October, they advanced 1.5–2 km on average and up to 3.3 km in places, Mashovets wrote. ISW assessed that Ukraine likely pushed Russian forces from a salient northwest of the Fedorivka–Burlatske line. Komar, north of Velyka Novosilka, has long anchored Russian defenses on the road south.

Russia's marines defend instead of attacking

Persistent Ukrainian counterattacks forced Russia to send elements of its 120th Naval Infantry Division (Baltic Fleet) and 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) to defend near Oleksandrivka instead of attacking at Huliaipole, Mashovets wrote. The move "was clearly unplanned and caused precisely by the Ukrainian offensive," he said.

Russia's naval infantry is relatively elite, and Moscow usually sends it to priority sectors, ISW noted. These units fought near Dobropillia before moving south in March, ISW said at the time, when Ukraine's counterattacks were already burning Russian reserves.

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Russia also moved part of its 90th Tank Division into the sector, though it was apparently meant to reinforce the push toward Druzhkivka. "Instead, only some of its units appeared there, and a larger part ended up" defending in the south, Mashovets said. ISW has tracked the division's elements in several directions, including near Sumy as recently as September.

A road junction behind Russia's push on Orikhiv

Velyka Novosilka sits at a road junction that supports Russia's drive west from Huliaipole to envelop Orikhiv from two sides. Further Ukrainian advances would threaten the rear of those Russian forces, ISW assessed. Mashovets called the Huliaipole–Velyka Novosilka road an important supply route for Russia's 36th and 5th armies as early as July, ISW reported. Ukraine has counterattacked in this direction since early February, contesting Russia's initiative across the front, ISW added.

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Russian attacks near Oleksandrivka and Huliaipole on 24 and 25 October made no confirmed advances, ISW said. A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger acknowledged that Russia's advance toward Orikhiv has slowed. Russia is preparing to resume mechanized assaults in the south, Ukrainian military officials warned last week.

Mashovets was cautious about what comes next. Ukraine's advance has slowed to a minimum, and its units will likely have to pause or regroup because their forces are limited, he wrote. He also noted Russian positions southwest of Filiia, near Novopavlivka, which ISW read as a recent Russian advance there.

If Ukrainian troops cross the Huliaipole–Velyka Novosilka road in force, Russia would have to turn part of its 5th Army from facing west to facing north, Mashovets wrote.