‘Good work, guys. Surgical' — British guns rattle Russia

Times

25-07-2025

When the big gun booms, the earth shakes. The shockwave from the AS90 self-propelled howitzer is so strong it pulverises falling raindrops, sending a fine spray into the faces of the Ukrainian artillery crew as they launch a high explosive round towards the Russian trench line.
'Waiting…' a voice crackled over a radio, then: 'Fire, Fire!'
Again the behemoth vehicle rocked back on its haunches. 'Load!' came the radio command.
A Ukrainian loader sweated in the dugout as he fed the 45kg shells into 45 tonnes of British engineering. Another was setting the fuses, while inside the mobile howitzer, a gunner manoeuvred the cannon to the instructions from his commander.
'Aim point Azimuth [number]! Waiting … Fire, Fire!'
The crew fired six rounds in quick succession, targeting five Russian soldiers in a trench, and after each shot making minor adjustments to their aim. Then, as quickly as they had taken their positions, the soldiers filed back into their bunker. An enemy 'FPV' [First Person View] suicide drone was hovering above, hunting for the crew's firing position. Its Russian operator was too late to save his comrades, but was no doubt looking to exact revenge.
The crew of Ukraine's 2nd Self-Propelled Artillery Battery, Third Assault Brigade, hunkered down in their bunker under a tree line: eight men crowded into a cramped, muddy space big enough for only two bunkbeds and two desks. One soldier played back video from their own drone above the Russian lines, to show their work.
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'That was our shot. We fired, and here is the impact,' said 'Bear', the radio operator, as he watched the blast strike a treeline in puffs of smoke. 'Look, it hit the target. There's the bunker in the tree line. Here's another one — hitting the same place where they're hiding. That's good work, guys. Surgical.'In May the British Army retired its 89 AS90s, handing them all over to Ukraine. The Third Assault Brigade received at least 12, replacing their Soviet-era 2S19 Msta-S. They are pleased with their new weapon.
'If the gun is in good condition — if we've checked it and everything's fine — it works really well. It feels like it was built with the operator in mind,' said 'Skrypa', the crew commander. The tracked vehicle's interior is spacious compared with their old Soviet artillery, and it is better armoured and better absorbs the powerful, brain-shaking vibrations of the 155mm gun.
They have also withstood an intensity of use they were never designed for, according to the crew, who allow for some wear and tear. 'These are good guns. They can fire up to eight times more than the declared barrel lifespan,' Lev, a sergeant, said. 'But after 8,000 shots, maybe you'll hit on the fifth shot instead of the third.'
The Third Assault Brigade is an elite unit comprised only of volunteers, motivated by strong nationalist sentiment. They are holding the Russians back around the strategic town of Izyum, which was occupied, then liberated, in the first year of the war.
Its recapture would allow the Russians to bear down on Ukraine's army further south in the Donbas, cutting key supply lines, so General Syrsky has deployed one of his best brigades there and ordered them to hold. In other areas of the front the Ukrainians are being gradually driven back, hampered by a dire lack of infantry. The key towns of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka are being encircled and slowly reduced to rubble.
By contrast, the Third Assault Brigade have a full complement and have held the Russians to a crawl for more than a year, despite intense assaults.
'When the enemy begins pushing toward our infantry, we engage to stop them from even getting close,' Skrypa said. 'I had a situation where about 30 [Russians] started gathering in a tree line, preparing to attack our guys — storm troopers. But they didn't make it. We fired several shells, and that was it, none of them wanted to come back.'
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The Ukrainians' use of British AS90s has pleased their UK allies.
'The UK's AS90 artillery platforms, which with its high rate of fire, survivability and good mobility has made it a highly effective tool in halting Russian attacks,' Luke Pollard, the minister for the armed forces, said. 'The UK's support for Ukraine remains ironclad. That is why we are stepping up on a 50-day drive to arm Ukraine and force Putin to the negotiating table.'
Initially the UK planned to send only 30 howitzers, which were transferred in January 2023. Yet the Ukrainian crews have proved so capable they were gifted all of them. The artillery systems, designed in the 1990s, were retired by the British Army because of their age and their lumbering lack of mobility for the modern battlefield. But they are still proving their worth in Ukraine and have become a high priority target for Russian drones designed in 2025.
'There was one incident when we got hit by a winged drone. It hit near our ­firing position. But since we always use camouflage nets and branches, the cumulative charge only scratched the armour a little,' Skrypa recalled.
'Another time the net caught fire — it started spreading toward the gun, but we managed to put it out in time. First two FPVs hit our firing point, then we extinguished the flames and went back to our position. The third drone hit our transport vehicle — the regular one we drove in on. It burnt down completely.'
The men cracked jokes in the bunker to relieve the tension while waiting to find out if the Russian drone had found either the gun emplacement or their bunker. Bear tracked its signal on a screen that shows any aircraft emitting a radio signal.
The last line of defence against drones is a simple shotgun, but the Ukrainians have now developed cartridges that can be loaded into the magazine of an assault rifle. They can be fired in bursts, creating a spread of shrapnel that increases the chance of hitting an incoming explosive drone.
After an anxious few minutes, the Russian drone started moving away.
'The air is clear,' says Bear, looking up from the screen. There are newer drones, controlled by long strands of fibre optic cable, that give off no radio signal and that his system cannot detect, he warned. Then the crew returned to resume their firing.