Ukraine's Drones Now Aiding Tanks In Destroying More Russian Armor At Faster Rate

In the fourth year of the war, Russia still has more armor than Ukraine, but it is losing more of it - and at a faster rate. 

Ukraine's advantage is in better coordination between drone and tank units, both in terms of targeting and countermeasures against Russian drones. The effect, as in this recent video from Toretsk, is cataclysmic for Russian armor, which is one of the key reasons why the Kremlin has been unable to achieve any of its stated objectives for at least a year. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

Close tank fights favoring the Ukrainians have become more common, as Ukrainian radio-jamming has grounded Russian drones. The Ukrainian tank corps holds a key advantage as the war grinds into its fourth year. Ukrainian tanks are more mobile (because) Ukraine jams Russia’s drones more effectively than Russia jams Ukraine’s. It all comes down to drones and countermeasures against drones. Anywhere the Ukrainians deploy two company-sized drone groups, Russian tanks “simply don’t reach the line for launching an attack.” They get droned miles behind the line of contact. Reduced to firing from camouflaged positions miles behind the front line, Russian tanks are inaccurate howitzers. 

More than three years into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, the Russian armed forces still have more tanks than the Ukrainian armed forces have. This despite Russian forces losing 3,900 tanks to Ukrainian action—roughly as many tanks as the Russians deployed on the eve of the wider war.

The Kremlin has made good these losses by building a few hundred new tanks and retrieving thousands of older tanks from long-term storage.

The Ukrainians have lost 1,100 tanks, which is also roughly as many as they had before the wider war. They’ve replaced their own losses by fetching old T-64s from storage and updating them while also accepting, as donations, nearly 1,000 tanks including hundreds of German-made Leopards and American-made M-1s.

 

Despite proportionally equivalent losses and Russia’s enduring force-structure advantage, the Ukrainian tank corps holds one key advantage as the wider war grinds into its fourth year. Ukrainian tanks are more mobile—and for one main reason. Ukraine jams Russia’s drones more effectively than Russia jams Ukraine’s drones, reducing the risk to Ukrainian armor from the otherwise ever-present flying robots.

“Our tanks can only operate from covered positions,” one Russian blogger complained in a long missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated. Reduced to firing from camouflaged positions miles behind the front line, Russian tanks are essentially inaccurate howitzers—and not the assault-leading combat vehicles their designers intended.

By contrast, Ukrainian tanks operate “more freely,” the blogger claimed.

Azov Brigade tankers. Via Militaryland.net

Drones aid tanks

It all comes down to drones and countermeasures against drones, as is often the case in a war that is increasingly dominated by robotic systems of all types. “The enemy has achieved sufficient scale and variety in its drones and has honed its tactics for their use,” the blogger explained.

Anywhere along the front line where the Ukrainians have managed to deploy two company-sized drone groups, each with a few dozen operators, Russian tanks “simply don’t reach the line for launching an attack,” according to the blogger. They get droned miles behind the line of contact.

All this preamble should contextualize a striking image from eastern Ukraine that circulated online on Friday. A Ukrainian drone observed what appears to be an upgraded T-64 from the Ukrainian Azov Brigade blasting a possibly stranded Russian BTR-82 wheeled fighting vehicle, potentially abandoned by its crew, from mere yards away near the ruins of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine. Ammunition inside the BTR quickly cooked off in cataclysmic fashion.

This isn’t the first time in recent months that Ukrainian tanks have engaged Russian vehicles at point-blank range—exigencies that were common in the chaotic early days of the wider war as Russian armies advanced toward Kyiv, but which were much rarer in 2023 and early 2024 as drones proliferated. Close tank fights favoring the Ukrainians have become more common, it seems, as Ukrainian radio-jamming has grounded more Russian drones.

The circumstances around Toretsk also favor close fights. After retreating from the city’s ruins by late January after months of brutal urban fighting, Ukrainian brigades reconsolidated and, sensing exhaustion among the “victorious” Russian regiments, counterattacked.

Advancing wherever they detect gaps in Russian defenses, the Ukrainians have advanced south of Toretsk. Opportunistic mechanized attacks on unprepared mechanized forces and any vehicles they abandon in the middle of the road is how you get a Ukrainian T-64 appearing within a few yards of a Russian BTR-82 still packed with ammo.

But it’s Ukraine’s radio-jamming electronic-warfare troops who helped that T-64 get there—and prevented a Russian T-90 from being in position to meet the Ukrainian tank.