Ten months after first attacking Chasiv Yar, a fortress town in eastern Ukraine, Russian troops have finally managed to advance—at times, only briefly—into the town’s central district.
The Ukrainian 24th Mechanized Brigade and adjacent units aren’t making it easy for them. Taking advantage of Ukraine’s newfound tank advantage, the 24th Mechanized has engaged infiltrating Russian paratroopers at point-blank range.
On or before Jan. 18, a Russian assault drawn from one of the three air assault and airborne regiments arrayed east of Chasiv Yar made a run into the ruins of the town center, which has absorbed relentless Russian bombardments since last spring.
The Russians in their two BMD-4 infantry fighting vehicles came to a bad end. Ukrainian infantry hit one BMD with a rocket-propelled grenade, apparently destroying it. The surviving BMD was helpless to resist when one of the 24th Mechanized Brigade’s T-72 tanks rolled right up to it—and blasted it with a 125-millimeter tank round from just 100 feet away.
“The battle for the city continues,” the 24th Mechanized Brigade reported.
It would have been unusual earlier in the war for a Ukrainian tank to fight that close. But the battlefield of Russia’s 35-month wider war on Ukraine is changing in ways that favor Ukrainian armored forces, even as Russian troops—who outnumber Ukrainian troops—continue to slowly advance. Albeit it at enormous cost.
The sheer number of Ukrainian drones hovering over the 800-mile front line—tens of thousands arrive at the front every month—means Russian tanks “can only operate from covered positions,” one Russian blogger complained in a long missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated.
Russia also deploys tens of thousands of drones every month, but they’re shoddier, their operators are generally less experienced and they must contend with Ukrainian radio-jamming that’s much more effective than Russian jamming.
So while Russian tanks must hide, Ukrainian tanks operate “more freely,” the blogger claimed.
It’s not hyperbole. Evidence abounds of Ukrainian tanks fighting closer than ever as the wider war grinds toward its fourth year.
That doesn’t mean the Ukrainians are winning every battle, or the Russians are losing. Russian regiments might be loathe to risk their remaining tanks, but they clearly feel no such qualms when it comes to risking the less powerful BMD fighting vehicles and their infantry passengers.
Not every Russian assault group comes to grief at the receiving end of a Ukrainian tank firing from 100 feet away.
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