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Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028645
UKRAINE WAR
TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES

The Military Show: Ukraine Uses INSANE
Mine Hack to WIPE OUT Russian Troops


Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLmmI2JBtM
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY



Peter Burgess
Ukraine Uses INSANE Mine Hack to WIPE OUT Russian Troops

The Military Show

May 6, 2025

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Ukraine has unveiled a minefield breakthrough that neutralized Russia’s summer offensive before it began. Facing motorcycle-mounted Russian troops bypassing traditional anti-tank mines, Ukrainian engineers rewired their defenses with trip-wire triggers and mixed anti-personnel solutions. The new strategy was deployed during assaults near Druzhba and Dylivka, with modified mines eliminating dozens of bikes. Russian losses now exceed 10,700 tanks, 22,500 armored vehicles, and nearly 960,000 soldiers dead, wounded, or captured.

The breakthrough followed reports from April 27 citing Russia’s tactical shift toward motorcycle warfare, supported by official Defense Ministry training footage. While the vehicles were intended to outmaneuver drones and mines, Ukraine’s quick adaptation flipped the script. Verified imagery shows Russian motorcycles destroyed en masse, confirming Ukraine’s frontline advantage heading into summer.

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Transcript
  • 0:00
  • Ukraine has a problem. Over the last few weeks,
  • it’s become clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin has started increasingly relying
  • on motorcycle-mounted troops to conduct assaults against Ukraine. Those troops are fast. They’re
  • mobile. And most worryingly for Ukraine, they’re lightweight. Russians on motorcycles aren’t
  • triggering the carefully laid anti-tank mines Ukraine has laid to slow down Russia’s attacks.
  • So, what has Ukraine done? What it’s done for over three years
  • of fighting against Russia – innovate. Ukrainian sappers are now using an insane new mine hack to
  • wipe out Russian troops, forcing Putin to go back to the drawing board for his ground offensive.
  • Ukraine’s innovation all starts with a challenge that most of its military leaders never thought
  • they would have to confront. In April, reports started to emerge that Russia was training its
  • troops to ride motorcycles so they could attack Ukraine. At first, this was great news for
  • Ukraine. Motorcycles aren’t armored vehicles. Sure, they’re fast and mobile, but they offer

  • 1:03
  • practically no protection to the soldiers riding them. Russia’s use of motorcycles must have been
  • a showcase of Putin’s desperation given that he’s already lost over 10,700 tanks and almost 22,500
  • armored fighting vehicles in his Ukraine invasion. If Russia was resorting to motorcycles,
  • that must have meant it was on its last legs when it came to mechanized assaults.
  • Perhaps not quite. While it’s true that Russia
  • is burning through its stockpiles of armored vehicles, Putin’s increasing use of motorcycles
  • has several other purposes. Russia wants to use these vehicles as part of a renewed summer
  • offensive against Ukraine. That’s according to an April 27 report published by The Kyiv Independent,
  • which cites the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, as the source of its information. According
  • to the ISW, The Russian Defense Ministry is proud of its new motorcycle tactics.
  • So proud that it even published footage on April 26 of its troops training on the two-wheeled

  • 2:04
  • vehicles in what the ISW says indicates Putin’s plans to create “a tactical doctrine
  • for systematic offensive motorcycle usage.” That footage showcased only a handful of Russian
  • troops training on motorcycles. The reality is that there will
  • likely be hundreds who get sent to fight against Ukraine in the summer.
  • That’s according to Pavlo Shamshyn, who’s the spokesperson for the Ukrainian
  • operational-tactical group Kharkiv. Reporting on Russia’s plans, Shamshyn says, “Our intelligence
  • records the fact that in training centers on the territory of the Russian Federation and in the
  • units themselves, active training of motorcycle drivers is taking place, and all this indicates
  • that the assault operations of spring-summer 2025 will be carried out on motorcycles.”
  • The question now is obvious: Why?
  • Motorcycles come with plenty of disadvantages that seem to make them a bad choice for the Ukraine

  • 3:00
  • war’s front lines. The previously mentioned lack of armor is one. If a motorcycle is struck by
  • practically anything, ranging from a bullet up to artillery fire, it’s not going to offer much
  • protection to its riders. The vehicles are weak. The riders are exposed. And compared
  • to armored vehicles and tanks, motorcycles offer practically no protection to the waves of people
  • Putin is sending to assault Ukraine’s defenses. On the surface, Putin’s new strategy looks
  • like just another way for him to sacrifice more of his own soldiers against Ukraine.
  • But there’s actually some method behind Putin’s madness.
  • For one thing, the use of motorcycles by Russia is nothing new, even if its more
  • intensive training campaigns are recent. As CNN pointed out in an April 27 report,
  • Russians have been using these types of vehicles for at least a year because they
  • provide enough speed and mobility to allow troops to evade the first-person view, or FPV,
  • drones Ukraine has been deploying to take out Russia’s tanks and armored vehicles.

  • 4:02
  • It isn’t a perfect solution for Putin. A motorcycle that gets struck by a drone is
  • going to be destroyed even faster than a more armored vehicle. Motorcycles are also loud.
  • So loud that their engines can mask the sound of an incoming drone, making their riders even
  • more vulnerable. But the trick lies in the catching. Motorcycles are also cheaper than
  • tanks and armored vehicles, making them viable options for a Russian leader who has already
  • demonstrated that he’s willing to throw his troops away to get what he wants. Almost 960,000 dead,
  • injured, or captured Russian soldiers don’t lie. Putin doesn’t care about his troops. If
  • using motorcycles allows even a handful of them to evade drones so they can get closer to Ukraine’s
  • defenses, that’s perfectly fine with Putin. So, avoiding drones is the main reason
  • behind Putin’s use of motorcycles. But there’s another reason – one that
  • Putin may not have even been aware of when he approved plans for motorcycle training:
  • Russia’s bikes are ideal for avoiding the carefully laid mines Ukraine has

  • 5:03
  • planted to defend its positions against incoming tanks and armored vehicles.
  • That’s according to Euromaidan Press, which reported on May 5 that Ukraine has been
  • dealing with a problem it never anticipated facing. That problem revealed itself during
  • a recent Russian assault near Druzhba. In early May, Russia accumulated several tanks
  • and armored vehicles in that region. Putin’s goal was simple – use his heavy armor to make progress
  • across several fields before Russia deployed its infantry to attack a Ukrainian position.
  • The assault was slow, says Euromaidan Press. That’s because Russia had transformed many of
  • its tanks into so-called “turtle tanks” by equipping them with wood, rubber, and even
  • metal chains to protect them against Ukraine’s kamikaze FPV drones. Those measures work. However,
  • they add weight and can sometimes reduce visibility, necessitating slower progress.
  • That crawling pace enabled Ukraine to spend time using its drones to pinpoint

  • 6:01
  • the weaknesses of these hastily modified tanks. Once found, those weaknesses led to the same
  • result seen so many times during the Ukraine war: Russia’s heavy armored vehicles went up in flames.
  • But this time, Russia followed up the armored assault with motorcycles.
  • Those bikes were more successful than the slow-moving armored units. A few even managed
  • to break through, reaching the settlement of Dylivka – far deeper into Ukrainian territory
  • than the tanks had managed. The motorcyclists still failed. Ukraine’s FPV drones eventually
  • managed to pick them off, taking out several while they were en route before killing the
  • rest of Russia’s troops when they inevitably had to slow down so they could dismount.
  • Still, it was clear there was a problem. What that problem was became clear when there
  • was a lull in the fighting that allowed Ukraine to spend some time mopping up the few Russian
  • survivors while it examined its defenses. A key vulnerability emerged. As Ukraine’s soldiers asked
  • themselves how Russia’s motorcycle troops had managed to penetrate so deeply into its position,

  • 7:03
  • they settled on the culprit. Ukraine’s anti-tank mines.
  • Designed to trigger when a heavy vehicle, such as a tank or armored car, rolls over them,
  • these mines had proven themselves completely ineffective against Russia’s motorcycles. The
  • riders simply drove over them. The mines didn’t trigger, allowing Russia’s lightly armored
  • troops to achieve far more success than the slow-moving armored units from the first assault.
  • Ukraine needed a solution. That’s when its sappers came into play.
  • First, these clever engineers reinforced the anti-tank mines they’d already laid with
  • anti-personnel mines. The use of these mines is contentious. The Ottawa Convention exists
  • to ban their use around the world due to the danger they pose both to soldiers and everyday
  • civilians who accidentally step on the mines when a conflict is over. However, Ukraine is in
  • a needs-must situation. It’s using anti-personnel mines precisely because Putin is so happy to send
  • human waves to assault its defenses. Every Russian blown up by one of these mines is proof, at least

  • 8:04
  • to Ukraine, that it’s justified in using them. Still, Ukraine’s supply of these mines was
  • limited, as was the time it had to lay them given that Putin’s forces were assembling for
  • another assault. That’s when Ukraine’s sappers came up with a brilliant hack.
  • What if they could find a way to transform their more powerful anti-tank mines so they’d
  • blow up just as easily if a motorcycle rode over them as an anti-personnel mine would?
  • The question was raised. Within minutes, the sappers had an answer. Rather than relying on
  • the mines to trigger based on the pressure exerted upon them, Ukraine’s sappers jerry-rigged their
  • anti-tank mines with a wire-triggered mechanism. If a motorcycle tripped any of these wires,
  • then boom! The mine goes off and both bike and rider are blown to smithereens.
  • That wasn’t the limit of the sappers’ genius solution. Beyond layi ng anti-personnel
  • mines and adapting anti-tank mines, they also modified mines they’d built themselves. Again,

  • 9:00
  • the goal was the same – recalibration and fine-tuning to ensure those mines
  • detonate whenever a bike rides over them. These insane mine hacks are just the most
  • recent of the many examples of Ukraine showcasing its inability to innovate on
  • the fly to deal with evolving Russian threats. Dividends were reaped when Russia attempted
  • its third and final assault on Dylivka. This time, Putin’s soldiers attempted a
  • combined push that included both armored vehicles and the motorcycles that gave Ukraine so much
  • trouble during the second wave of attacks. The logic was sound. The first attack showed that
  • slow-moving vehicles couldn’t do much without some form of distraction. Russia’s second assault
  • demonstrated that motorcycles could ride through Ukraine’s defenses, forcing its soldiers to focus
  • on the bikes and riders rather than the heavier vehicles following up. With its third assault,
  • Russia believed it could use its motorcycles as a distraction. They’d ride over the Ukrainian mines
  • and wreak havoc, giving Putin’s tanks and armored vehicles time to get into position to launch a

  • 10:01
  • sustained and stronger assault against Dylivka. It was a sound strategy but for one thing:
  • Russia hadn’t accounted for the brilliant work done by Ukraine’s sappers.
  • With the Ukrainian minefields recalibrated, Russia’s motorcyclists found themselves getting
  • blown to pieces as they attempted to play their role in the assault. That left Ukraine free to
  • dedicate its FPV drones to the important task of taking out yet more tanks and armored vehicles.
  • Ukraine won. And geolocated footage shared by Euromaidan Press shows just how devastating a
  • defeat this was for Putin’s forces. The images show several Russian motorcycles strewn across
  • the side of the road leading into Dylivka, many of them damaged or in flames as a result
  • of Ukraine’s clever mine alterations. The few Russian riders who managed to survive having
  • their bikes blown from underneath them were quickly picked off by drones, the outlet says.
  • By the end of the third assault, Russia hadn’t even managed to come close to Dylivka,

  • 11:00
  • certainly not in comparison to the second wave. Putin had intended for his motorcycle troops
  • to exploit what he believed to be a weakness in Ukraine’s lines. They did. Russia’s problem, as
  • has been the case throughout Putin’s invasion, is that it underestimated Ukraine’s ability to adapt
  • on the fly as soon as a weakness is revealed. Thanks to its sappers, Ukraine now has a viable
  • strategy to use against Russia’s motorcyclists. What was supposed to be a new Russian
  • strength – one that exposed a Ukrainian vulnerability – has transformed into a
  • weakness that Ukraine can exploit. It also seems likely that the
  • Ukrainian stroke of genius is already having an impact on Russia’s tactics.
  • At around the same time as Russia was failing to use its motorcyclists to attack Dylivka,
  • another Russian assault column was trying to make its way into Nadiivka. This was a more traditional
  • column, made up of tanks and armored vehicles. Again, mines ended up being the stars of the
  • show. Ukraine scattered dozens of anti-tank mines on the road into Nadiivka, taking out

  • 12:02
  • several Russian armored units in the process. Ukraine’s tactic in this engagement focused
  • on preventing the Russian retreat. As Putin’s tanks and armored vehicles rolled along the road,
  • Ukraine’s sappers snuck into positions behind them to lay new mines. Once the Russian column
  • hit the first minefield, it lost several of its vehicles and chose to turn back to come up with
  • a new assault strategy. That didn’t work. The previously safe road they’d navigated
  • was now littered with mines, meaning Ukraine had created devastating choke points. The rest
  • of Russia’s tanks were finished off by the new mines. Operators attempting to escape the
  • vehicles were picked off by FPV drones. Another Russian assault had failed.
  • This second assault didn’t include any motorcycles, but it’s another showcase
  • of how Ukraine’s brilliant sappers can use mines to prevent Putin’s forces from advancing. And now
  • that those sappers have a new hack for taking out motorcycle troops, Putin faces a dilemma:
  • Does he continue with his motorcycle strategy for the summer or go back

  • 13:03
  • to the armored column assaults that Nadiivka shows us are often ineffectual?
  • Either way, the story will be the same for Russia. It’s going to lose thousands more soldiers and
  • hundreds of pieces of equipment thanks to the brilliance of Ukraine’s sappers.
  • And that leads to another question… What does the innovation of Ukraine’s
  • sappers mean for the future of the Ukraine war? The first answer forces a confrontation with a sad
  • reality created by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. A country that is already laden with more mines than
  • almost any other in the world is only going to see even more of these dangerous weapons being laid.
  • As early as November 2023, outlets such as Vox were highlighting the sheer proliferation of
  • landmines in Ukraine. In its article, Vox noted that around 67,181 square miles of Ukraine were
  • believed to contain mines of some description. For context, that’s a landmass the approximate size
  • of Florida and it makes up about 30% of Ukraine. Those mines are everywhere. While minefields are

  • 14:04
  • at their densest in locations that Russia currently occupies, with combinations of
  • both Ukrainian mines and those Russia has laid contributing to that problem,
  • there are still thousands of landmines spread around territory Ukraine still owns. All told,
  • 11 of Ukraine’s 27 regions were documented to contain mines by the end of 2023.
  • There are likely many more regions that have been contaminated by mines since.
  • Those mines represent a “clear and present” danger according to HALO Trust head Major
  • General James Cowan. Speaking to CEPA in November 2024, he pointed out that Ukraine is caught in
  • a difficult situation. “War is inherently brutal,” Cowan told CEPA. “One side seeks
  • to prevail through violence unless the other can resist effectively.” Cowan also said that Ukraine
  • has the right to self-defense, which means that, at least under certain guidelines, it’s within
  • its rights to use anti-personnel landmines and the jerry-rigged mines its sappers are creating

  • 15:02
  • to take out Russia’s motorcycle troops. Still, there’s no denying that mines are
  • a major problem in Ukraine. By November 2024, a further 10% of Ukraine’s territory had been
  • dotted with the weapons, meaning at least 40% of Ukraine is now home to mines. Think about
  • what that means when the Ukraine war ends. These mines potentially present a massive
  • humanitarian problem regardless of which side wins. Assuming a successful Ukrainian defense,
  • the country’s authorities will have to spend many years clearing out the minefields that
  • now litter Ukraine. Unintended civilian deaths are almost inevitable, especially in the cities Russia
  • currently occupies that have been laced with mines to prevent Ukraine from reclaiming them.
  • As brilliant as Ukraine’s sappers are for finding a way to overcome Putin’s motorcycle forces,
  • they’re now feeding into a problem that Ukraine – or Russia – will have
  • to deal with at some point in the future. Ukraine will argue that it’s doing what it

  • 16:00
  • has to do to defend itself. It would be right.
  • On a more positive front, the hacking of its own anti-tank mines also showcases just how
  • innovative a fighting force Ukraine’s military has become. The sappers responsible for what’s
  • been seen in Druzhba and Dylivka are typically engineers who previously focused on demining
  • the areas that Russia had laced. October 2023 saw Ukraine provide 20 of its sapper teams with
  • mine clearance kits for that purpose as part of the “We Live Here” project. That move followed a
  • similar effort by the Come Back Alive Foundation, which provided 51 sapper teams with similar kits.
  • The point here is that Ukraine is well aware of the landmine problem it has
  • and is actively doing everything it can to get rid of the mines that represent
  • the biggest threats to its civilians. Still, it’s also shown it can repurpose its sappers.
  • These landmine experts have shown themselves to be as effective as an offensive force as they
  • are a mine clearance force in Dylivka. Ukraine will likely use them in this dual role for as

  • 17:03
  • long as needed to prevent Putin’s aggression. Speaking of Putin, Ukraine’s brilliant mine
  • hack means one thing for his plans to use motorcycles in Russia’s summer offensive:
  • They’re practically dead in the water. Putin’s original plan was to use his
  • motorcyclists to distract drone fire and, as far as possible, evade drones to launch assaults on
  • Ukraine’s defenses. That plan has already proven to be ineffective. Ukraine is capable of taking
  • our Russian motorcycle riders with drones when those riders attack without armored support.
  • When tanks and armored vehicles are present, Ukraine can now use mines designed to take
  • out both motorcycles and heavier vehicles, meaning the diversionary tactics Putin hoped
  • to use during the summer aren’t going to work. Does that mean Putin and his cronies will head
  • back to the drawing board? They should.
  • Dylivka has just given Russia a taste of what using motorcycle assaults will really mean when

  • 18:00
  • Putin ramps them up in the summer. The problem Putin faces is one touched on earlier – he’s
  • running out of usable tanks and armored vehicles. Tens of thousands of both are already destroyed,
  • leaving Russia to increasingly rely on older Soviet-era equipment that has been
  • mothballed for decades. Motorcycle assaults are perhaps as much of a necessity due to low
  • equipment stockpiles as they are a tactical maneuver to avoid Ukraine’s drones and mines.
  • Putin will have to follow through on his initial plans for the summer. He doesn’t
  • really have any choice. Ukraine’s response will likely be to build on the brilliance
  • its sappers demonstrated on May 5 so it can respond to Russia’s motorcycle troops with the
  • destructive defense needed to prevent advances. One thing is for certain – Ukraine’s capable of
  • finding ways to adapt. The only question now is whether Russia’s summer strategy will be
  • overwhelming enough to overcome those adaptations. Let us know how you think Russia’s motorcycle
  • soldiers are going to fare during the summer in the comments. Are they going to be blown

  • 19:02
  • to pieces by Ukraine’s mine innovations? Will Russia make any substantial territorial gains
  • during the summer? Share your opinions below and remember to subscribe to The Military Show for
  • up-to-date news and information about conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and around the globe.


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