Defense Correspondent for Zelenogorsk Pravda, Svetlana Golikova reports on the cost of victory in the northwest
ZELENOGORSK — The village of Krasnoye Pole is little more than a dot on the map of Northwest Chernarus—a scattering of homes along a muddy creek, a place where farmers once drove their tractors home at dusk. But on the evening of February 25, 2026, it became the epicenter of one of the most brutal armored engagements of this long conflict.
And the men of the 3rd Tank Brigade paid for it in steel and blood.
Zelenogorsk Pravda has obtained the classified after-action report from the battle, a document that paints a picture of tactical brilliance, fatal command decisions, and a victory that came at a price so steep it may take months to recover.
'THEY WERE STARVING FOR FUEL'
It began with whispers—fragments of emails, social media chatter, the nervous reports of agents who risk their lives to slip information across contested lines. The separatists were planning something big.
"They were complaining for weeks about their fuel situation," one intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told this reporter. "Critical shortages. Their vehicles were sitting idle. They needed grain, they needed fuel, and they knew exactly where to get it."
The target was Spornoye—the region's primary food processing center, a facility that handles thousands of tons of grain and fuel reserves. But to reach Spornoye, they first needed Krasnoye Pole.
"The village sits like a sentinel on the southeastern approach," explained a senior analyst familiar with the terrain. "Whoever holds Krasnoye Pole controls the road to Spornoye."
THE MEETING ENGAGEMENT
When intelligence confirmed the separatist plan, 3rd Tank Brigade assembled a task force with what they had available: three T-72 tanks, two BMP armored personnel carriers with rifle squads, and two BRDM scout cars. Their mission was what military planners call a "meeting engagement"—a race to an objective both sides want, with the expectation that the enemy will get there first.
Lieutenant Belobodorov commanded the task force. He was young for such responsibility, but experienced. He knew the odds.
"The tactical plan was sound," the after-action report states. "2nd Squad would occupy the northeast corner of the village while Command Squad deployed along the main north-south road. Clear, simple, defensible."
But as his forces approached, they found the enemy already there—rifle squads pushing through the village, setting up their own defensive cordon facing south. The meeting engagement had begun.
With Tank 2 providing fire support, Command Squad cleared the enemy positions while 2nd Squad advanced along the eastern edge. Within hours, Krasnoye Pole was back in government hands.
It should have been the end of the story.
It was only the beginning.
THE ORDER
As Belobodorov's men began establishing their defensive perimeter, a new order arrived from brigade operations staff. Intelligence had detected an enemy assembly area approximately one kilometer north of the village—a tactical group preparing to counterattack. The task force was ordered to advance and disrupt it.
Belobodorov protested.
According to interviews with surviving officers, the young lieutenant argued forcefully that the new position would expose his forces to heavy fire from both infantry and armor without any tactical benefit. He was overruled.
Command Squad, 2nd Squad, Tank 3, and Scout 2 advanced north.
"The meager deployment at the new objective was completely inadequate to defend," the report concludes with grim understatement.
THE HAMMER FALLS
What happened next unfolded in less than an hour.
The enemy counterattack came not from the north where expected, but from the northwest—a heavy column of tracked vehicles that flanked the exposed government forces. Belobodorov ordered a retreat back to Krasnoye Pole to re-establish the defensive cordon.
As his forces withdrew, he spotted an abandoned enemy BRDM scout car and moved southwest to destroy it. It was there that two surviving enemy tanks found him.
The engagement was brutal and brief. Tank 1, Tank 2, and Reinforcing Tank 4 were destroyed in succession. Both BMPs were hit before they could reach the village. Lieutenant Belobodorov was killed in the fire.
Of the four tanks and two BMPs committed to the battle, only one T-72 survived.
THE PRICE OF VICTORY
Here is where the story takes a turn that defies conventional military logic.
Despite the catastrophic losses—and they were catastrophic, by any measure—the operation succeeded.
The after-action report notes that of approximately 20 enemy vehicles committed to the battle, only four survived. Fully 75 percent of those kills were achieved by infantry, not armor or air support. The separatist force that had hoped to sweep through Krasnoye Pole and on to Spornoye was shattered.
"Had the defensive cordon not been extended north, the enemy would have had sufficient forces arrayed to retake the town," the report states flatly. The extension cost three tanks, two BMPs, and a promising young officer. But it also cost the enemy 16 vehicles and their offensive capability.
"The subsequent retreat was the only correct course of action after it became clear our armor had been defeated," the report concludes.
WHAT COMES NEXT
Battalion command staff immediately requested authorization for a counterattack to restore control of Krasnoye Pole. Brigade command denied it.
The reasons are written in the cold language of logistics: losses prohibitive; reconstitution time excessive; mechanized cavalry units still recovering from previous operations. Both sides, the report acknowledges, are suffering from the same shortages of fuel, equipment, and fresh troops.
"The only other option," the report states, "is an air assault operation from 2nd Battalion, 31st Air Assault Regiment."
That option is currently under discussion at battalion and brigade level.
'THE ENEMY HAD TO BE STOPPED'
In the muddy fields outside Spornoye, survivors of the battle are still processing what they endured. One infantryman, his face scarred by shrapnel, put it simply:
"We knew what would happen if they reached the grain silos. They were desperate. Desperate men fight hard. But so do we."
A tank commander who lost his vehicle but survived the engagement was more philosophical:
"The lieutenant was right. We shouldn't have gone north. But if we hadn't, they would have come through us anyway. Maybe from a different direction, maybe at a different time. The enemy had to be stopped. We stopped them. That's what matters, isn't it?"
THE CALCULUS OF WAR
Military historians may debate the Battle of Krasnoye Pole for years. Was it a tactical blunder redeemed by strategic necessity? A necessary sacrifice poorly executed? A victory purchased at too high a price?
For the families of the dead, such questions are academic. For the strategists in Zelenogorsk and the Coastal Operations Group, they are matters of life and death for the next operation, and the one after that.
The after-action report, signed by Colonel Denis Rozhkov, Deputy Head of Intelligence Staff for 3rd Tank Brigade, contains no heroics, no patriotic flourishes. It is a document of brutal honesty, intended for the eyes of generals and analysts.
But in its stark accounting—tanks destroyed, men killed, ground held—it tells a story that every Chernarusi should understand.
The enemy is desperate. They are running out of fuel, out of options, out of time. And desperate enemies are dangerous enemies.
They threw 20 vehicles at Krasnoye Pole. Sixteen burned. Four escaped.
One T-72 came home.
The village held.
