The Ukrainians Have Nearly Destroyed One Of The Russian Army’s Best Regiments

Eight years ago, an elite Russian parachute regiment played a central role in a massacre of Ukrainian soldiers. Now Ukraine has exacted its revenge. The 331st Guards Airborne Regiment has been all but destroyed in fighting around Kyiv.

Around 50 of the 331st’s paratroopers have died in Ukraine, according to open-source intelligence analysts who have scoured the internet for confirmation of the deaths. The wounded could number a hundred or more. And then there are the missing—many of whom undoubtedly will be confirmed dead as the 331st reconstitutes in Belarus.

That’s potentially hundreds of casualties in a regiment that, at its peak strength, had just 2,000 men. Members of the 331st’s headquarters staff, including regimental commander Col. Sergei Sukharev, also have died.

Analyst Rob Lee, from the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, has been tallying the 331st’s losses. The BBC weighed in with its own report on the regiment’s dismantling by Ukrainian forces.

Their reporting tells a startling tale—one that’s taken on a new quality in recent days. As Ukrainian troops chase behind Russian units retreating from the Kyiv suburbs, they’ve discovered hundreds of dead bodies. Civilians. Some lying along roadsides. Others in alleys or doorways. Many of them with their hands bound.

It’s increasingly clear that Russian units around Kyiv executed Ukrainian civilians—men and boys, in particular—before fleeing toward the safety of Belarus or Russia, often with looted home appliances and other spoils in tow. Ukrainian troops liberating the town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, found at least 20 bodies in the streets.

It’s worth noting that the 331st was one of the units that fought in Bucha.

The 331st has a history of atrocities. It was one of the units the Kremlin deployed to eastern Ukraine in 2014 to bolster Russian-backed separatist forces. The Russians and separatists surrounded Ukrainian troops in Ilovaisk. Commanders on both sides agreed to a ceasefire to allow the trapped Ukrainians to leave Ilovaisk via a so-called “humanitarian corridor.”

It was a trap. The Russians opened fire on the departing Ukrainians, killing around 400 of them in what was, until recently, the bloodiest day ever for the post-Soviet Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian army captured 10 members of the 331st in Ilovaisk, helping officials in Kyiv to confirm the regiment’s role in the massacre.

The 331st got the better of the Ukrainians eight years ago in Ilovaisk. In fighting around Kyiv this March, the regiment’s fortunes reversed. The 33st’s thin-skinned BMD and BTR-D airborne fighting vehicles, designed to be lightweight in order to facilitate transport via Il-76 airlifter, offered little protection against the Ukrainians’ missiles and artillery.

Wrecked BMDs and BTR-Ds feature in several videos and photos circulating on social media. Analysts have confirmed the Russians so far have lost at least 19 BMDs and BTR-Ds. The actual total almost certainly is much greater.

The lesson, for Russian leaders who don’t seem keen to learn anything from their disastrous war on Ukraine, might be this. It’s one thing for an “elite” parachute regiment to defeat an army that’s retreating under the terms of a purported ceasefire.

It’s much harder to beat a determined foe armed with powerful anti-tank missiles and fighting for its own home. A foe that no longer believes Russian promises.