New Delhi: For nearly three weeks, main battle tanks from Russia and Ukraine faced off near the coal-mining town of Vuhledar in Donetsk, Ukraine. The result, Ukraine claims, was a resounding defeat for the Russian tanks.
.@nytimes called the defense of Vuhledar the largest tank battle of the war in terms of russian losses. Which is, in our opinion, quite unfair to the russian infantry.
📷 72nd Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/fSxFBKA3DN
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 2, 2023
Ukrainian officials are describing this as the biggest tank battle since the outbreak of the war in February 2022. Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the British think-tank Royal United Services Institute, assesses Russia to have lost over 130 tanks at Vuhledar.
Vuhledar is the graveyard of Russia's military in Ukraine
A battle that cost 130 tanks and the decimation of the 155th naval brigade are the latest debacles
— Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2) March 1, 2023
A report in the The New York Times says that Russia advanced their tanks in columns and were met by Ukrainian fire from distant and hidden positions. The report adds that Russia repeated a past folly — sending tanks in columns into an ambush.
Estimates show that Russia has lost over 1,000 tanks since last February. These amount to more than half their operational tanks.
“Blown up on mines, hit with artillery or obliterated by anti-tank missiles, the charred hulks of Russian armoured vehicles now litter farm fields all about Vuhledar, according to Ukrainian military drone footage,” The New York Times adds.
Central to the Russian losses in tank warfare, a tactic Russians prize themselves in mastering, has been the reported use of conscripts and new recruits in these units. In many cases, tank commanders have been those with no expertise or have even been medics being reassigned to these positions.
In an interview with the The New York Times, Lt. Vladislav Bayak, the deputy commander of Ukraine’s 1st Mechanized Battalion of the 72nd brigade, explained how the Ukrainians inflicted heavy defeats on Russian tanks. He highlighted that ambushes were central to their tactic.
“Anti-tank teams hiding in tree lines along fields, and armed with American infrared-guided Javelins and Ukrainian laser-guided Stugna-P missiles” were used to attack Russian tanks, Bayak said.
High-Mobility Artillery Systems (HIMARS), used to devastating effect earlier in the war by Ukraine, were also used to attack the Russian tanks. Ukraine employed M777 American Howitzers and French Caesars, along with using Javelin missiles to attack the Russian tanks.
Further, dirt tracks were lined with mines and the Russians were lured into them by some crafty defensive positioning.
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