Russia has lost at least 130 tanks and armoured personnel carriers in a three-week battle in the town of Vuhledar in southern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ambushes have been Ukraine’s signature tactic against Russian armoured columns since the early days of the war.īy last week, Russia had lost so many machines to sustained armoured assaults that they had changed tactics and resorted only to infantry attacks, Ukrainian commanders said. Russian troops also suffered a lack of experienced tank commanders in Vuhledar, and many of the fighters consisted of newly conscripted soldiers who had not been trained in Ukraine’s tactics for ambushing columns, the paper says. The remains of the Russian tanks, blown up on mines, hit with artillery or destroyed by anti-tank missiles, now litter farm fields all about the coal mining town, according to Ukrainian military drone footage. When it was over, not only had Russia failed to capture Vuhledar, but it also had made the same mistake that cost Moscow hundreds of tanks earlier in the war: advancing columns into ambushes. Ukrainian officials said the “epic” fight on a plain near Vuhledar produced the biggest tank battle of the war so far and a stinging setback for the Russians, the New York Times reports.īoth sides sent tanks into the fray, “with the Russians thrusting forward in columns and the Ukrainians manoeuvring defensively, firing from a distance or from hiding places as Russian columns came into their sights”, the paper writes.
18.02 GMT Russia loses at least 130 tanks and APCs in Vuhledar in 'biggest tank battle in Ukraine war' – report
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