My personal estimate for the size of the coming Ukrainian counter offensive is: 20 brigades, amounting to approximately 90,000 — 100,000 troops, including 9 Western equipped and trained brigades (regular army), 3 Ukrainian regular army brigades, and 8 Ukrainian Storm Brigades (less trained TDB-equivalent units).
Totaling: 1 Western MBT Tank Brigade, 4 Soviet Era Tank Brigades, 7 Mechanized Infantry Brigades, and 8 Infantry Brigades.
Assuming that Ukraine sticks with the Soviet style smaller size Corps model of military unit organization its used so far (20,000 — 25,000 troops per corps), that amounts to 4 corps sized units worth of troops.
Here are some highlights of primary equipment deliveries I’ve confirmed in publicly available reports.
- 85 Modern Western MBTs
- 71 Leopard 2s (2A6 x 18, 2A4 x43, Strv122 x10)
- 14 Challenger 2s
- 80 Leopard 1A5s
- 90 T-72 Avengers (modernized T72Bs from Czech Excalibur Army Corp.)
- 109 Bradley IFVs
- 90 Stryker IFVs
- 40 Marder IFVs
- 50 CV90 IFVs
- 200 Roshel Senator APCs
There are literally hundreds of other armored fighting vehicles promised that I haven’t verified, including numerous older APCs like M113s from Lithuania and Denmark, older IFVs like the BVP1 from the Czech Republic but were publicly announced, so consider these the highlights.
Just to explain the terminology
- MBT: Main Battle Tank, 50-75 ton tanks with a 120 or 125mm main gun and heavy armor.
- IFV: Infantry Fighting vehicle, a 18ton to 25ton tracked or wheeled vehicle with a 20mm to 40mm autocannon, the best western IFVs also having antitank missiles that can carry 4 to 6 soldiers. Some can carry as many as 8.
- APC: Armored Personnel Carrier, an armored tracked or wheeled vehicle, usually with only a heavy machine gun as armament. Carries 10-16 passengers.
To understand how I arrived at these estimates, prepare for a deep dive below.
The Western Equipped Brigades
I kept a running and detailed list of every announced western aid package that provided detailed number of armored vehicles between December — March 2023. Based on the equipment promised, I arrived at a rough estimate of 8-9 Western Equipped Brigades.
This list excludes stuff that’s been pledged beyond the summer offensive timeframe, for example the US Abrams (expected between Sept — Dec 2023) or over a hundred refurbished Leopard I tanks expected to be delivered by some time in first half of 2024.
Recent updates included 3 additional Leopard 2s delivered from Portugal, and an update stating 80 Leopard 1A5s are expected to be ready for delivery during the spring. There more updates on Excalibur Army, the Czech company refurbishing/modernizing T72s for Ukraine on behalf of the Czech Republic and the Netherlands included here as well.
There is considerably less information I can find on deliveries of IFVs and APCs from anyone other than the United States and the UK. The promised Bradleys, Strykers were delivered, and the CV90s from Sweden I was also able to confirm. UK delivered at least 20 Bulldog APCs, but I’m not sure about the rest yet or when. The Senators APCs from Canada also arrived. but the vast majority of APCs in particular have been kind of hard to figure out how much is delivered and how much was promised but hasn’t arrived.
All’s that to say, parsing out what has been promised vs what has been delivered is quite a pain. A lot of the top line items (the Leopard 2s, Challenger 2s, Bradleys, Strykers, Marders, Senators, Cougar MRAPs) have been delivered already for sure. but the hard numbers on the margins for the 2nd line items that don’t grab the headlines (the hundreds of APCs and older Soviet era IFVs) that form a majority of the armored vehicles pledged to Ukraine get a big “?” from me, possibly intentionally from Ukraine.
For last few months, my personal estimate for what all this amounted to
- Tanks x405
- IFV x515
- APC x1074
at least based on promised equipment, based on what I pieced together from publicly available and announced information.
From these raw numbers, I worked off of US combined arms unit compositions to try to estimate the number of brigades that Ukraine would field based on these raw numbers, excluding artillery, recovery vehicles and other support vehicles for simplicity.
- Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT): 87 Abrams, 152 Bradley IFVs, 18 M109s and 45 armed M113 vehicles — Roughly 80-90 tanks + 220 IFVs/APCs.
- Stryker Brigade Combat team (SBCT): 240 combat vehicles (130 infantry carriers, 9 antitank vehicles, 32 commander vehicles, 56 reconnaissance vehicles, 13 fire support vehicles)
I don’t know the composition of Ukrainian units, and I certainly don’t know the composition of what Ukraine plans to do with their new western equipped units, but I made a working assumption that the tank brigades would analogize to a ABCT, and the mechanized infantry would analogize to SBCT as to their vehicle requirements.
I’m also assuming that Ukraine will simply swap IFVs for APCs as needed in force composition, as Ukraine’s aid included a higher proportion of APCs over IFVs, when US forces tend to have the opposite. This will require adjustments in tactics and doctrine, but should be workable.
This is how I arrived at my personal estimate of 8-9 western equipped brigades around early March.
Now, I don’t know how much stock we should put in the leaked Pentagon documents. it’s possible that the documents are fake information that’s being released to trick the Russians as an intelligence operation by the CIA and/or the Pentagon. It’s possible that it’s a real leak, but the information was modified by Russian agents. It’s possible the documents were released by some disgruntled Pentagon aid that spend his time trying to win the internet on 4chan.
But the Pentagon leak indicated that the Ukrainian offensive will have 6 Western equipped Brigades prepared by March 31, and 3 more (9 total Western equipped brigades) by the end of April, which basically matches perfectly with what my expectations were. So I don’t honestly know what to make of that, but I think 9 Western equipped brigades (roundly 40-45,000 troops) is a solid estimate.
These will be 3 Armored Brigades (1 Western MBT Brigade, 2 PT90/T72Avenger Brigades), 6 Mechanized infantry Brigades.
The Ukrainian Equipped Brigades
As best as I can tell, there are several major Ukrainian units that have been rotated off of combat duty and were placed in reserve some time around fall to early winter 2022 and available for an offensive in the Zaporizhzhia direction.
- 1st Tank Brigade has not participated in major action since the Battle of Kherson
- 4th Tank Brigade appears to have largely placed in reserve since the Battle of Lyman. Additionally it was confirmed the first 4 Leopard 2 tanks were given to the 4th TB.
- 59th Mechanized Infantry appeared to shift to reserve after the Battle of Kherson. Elements were committed to the Battle of Bakhmut in March 2023, but it appears to have been battalion strength and may have been withdrawn.
- 93rd Mechanized Infantry was fighting in Bakhmut until late October 2022 and has remained in reserve to the best of my knowledge
- Additionally, 65th Mechanized Infantry is known to be deployed south of Zaporizhzhia.
In terms of how Ukraine planned to staff the new Western equipped units, my working assumption was that Ukraine would either transfer experienced Ukrainian troops to new Western equipped formations to use these weapons, or they would replace their equipment.
Backing up this assumption, there were numerous comments from western instructors noting that Ukrainian troops training on western equipment were fast learners because they were already experienced soldiers.
So these experienced soldiers had to come from somewhere and I suspect they came from these veteran units that have seen limited or no action since the start of winter.
The rest of the personnel needs would be filled out by new regular army troops that have completed their 6 month training programs from both Ukrainian and NATO instructors.
For example, Operation Interflex in the UK features over 924 instructors from 12 NATO countries assisting in the training of recruits and officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, now producing around 1500 to 2000 new soldiers every month. Additional training centers in Germany with US instructors, as well as Polish, Lithuanian and Estonian instructors in Poland are generating troops, and of course, Ukraine’s own training program in western Ukraine.
So the new Western equipped brigades and some new Ukrainian Equipped brigade with older equipment will be staffed by a mix of elite Ukrainian veterans and newly trained soldiers.
In particular. I feel very confident in saying the Leopard 2s and Challenger 2s will be driven by tankers of the 1st and 4th Tank Brigades, as the 1st Tank Brigade (Battle of Kiev, Kherson) and the 4th Tank Brigade (Battle of Izium, Lyman) are basically the most decorated tank units of the war.
If you wanted to trust the personnel of any unit in the Ukrainian army to lead the spearhead of and estimated 200-250 Leopard 2s, Challenger 2s, Polish PT91s and Czech T72 Avengers, i don’t know how you do better than the 1st and 4th Tank Brigades.
But that also means that you have a lot of equipment that these units had previously that need to be used by someone else. Something similar was probably done with all the mechanized infantry needed to drive the IFVs and APCs that were being transferred.
The T64 Oblats of the 1st TB and the T72B3s of the 4th TB won’t be left lying around.
So my assumption was you’d have at least 2-4 brigades worth of additional equipment for 2 tank brigades and 1-2 mechanized infantry brigades.
If you believe the Pentagon Leak papers, there will be 3 Ukrainian equipped brigades. I would suspect they would be 2 tank brigades (1st TB and 4th TB’s tanks) and 1 mechanized infantry brigade.
Ukrainian Mechanized infantry had fewer IFVs and APCs and more dismounted infantry than Western Mechanized Infantry units. it is possible it took the equipment of multiple Ukrainian Mechanized Infantry to form 1 new Ukrainian equipped mechanized infantry with enough IFVs and APCs to have the same degree of mobility as the western equipped mechanized infantry.
For these reasons, I find the idea of 3 Ukrainian equipped brigades with the new Western Equipped brigades to be credible. 2 Tank Brigades and 1 Mechanized Infantry Brigades for approximately 10,000~15,000 troops.
The Storm Brigades
Finally, on April 5, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that 40,000 soldiers organized into 8 Storm Brigades were about to complete their training “within days.” it was also stated that these troops would be part of the Ukrainian offensive operation.
The soldiers are a mix of conscripts and a surge of volunteers that resulted from an aggressive social media recruiting campaign that pitched the Storm Brigades as a way to get revenge on Putin.
These soldiers are organized by the Ministry of Interior (rather than the Ministry of Defense) and received a more abbreviated 4 month training program. This is shorter than the 6 month+ training program that regular army Ukrainian troops go through, although more than twice as long as Russian regular army conscripts with 6-8 weeks of training, let alone mobiks and convict troops that receive 10-15 days of training.
They may analogize in quality to better trained units in the Territorial Defense Forces that have fought successfully on the defensive in many battles throughout the Russo-Ukrainian War.
These soldiers are organized into infantry battalions, which suggests a low degree of mechanization. Combined with their low standard of training, it seems unlikely that these troops are well suited for serving alongside the armored spearhead of the Ukrainian regular army at the vanguard of the attack.
However, as the spearhead advances and gains ground, the Ukrainian Army will need to protect its lines of logistics from Russian counter attacks, as well as occupy liberated cities and defend them. occupying static defense lines in trenches and cities will be a task that is well suited for the Storm Brigades, and it is in this role that I expect Storm Brigades will be valuable.
Defending 100km of logistical lines can take tens of thousands of soldiers, and it would be a waste to task highly trained Mechanized infantry with Marders and Bradleys with such a task. It makes a tremendous amount of sense to do it with a lower-cost unit.
This is not to say the role is unimportant. Disruptive attacks on Russian supply lines were a key component of how Ukraine defended Kiev. The Storm Brigades (if they are used in this way) will be a crucial component of a Ukrainian offensive in this manner.
But it is a savvy way of matching cost with benefit for a Ukrainian Army that needs to make ever penny count. The Storm Brigades contribute 8 Infantry Brigades, 40,000 troops.
The Total
9 Western Equipped Brigades (Regular Army)
- 1 Western MBT Brigade
- 2 Upgraded Soviet Tank Brigades with Western IFVs/APCs
- 6 Mechanized Infantry Brigades
3 Regular Army Brigades
- 2 Tank Brigades
- 1 Mechanized Infantry Brigade (high mechanization)
8 Storm Brigades
Total: estimated 90,000~100,000 troops in 20 brigades (4 Corps sized units)