Russian tanks struggle against Ukrainian forces in Luhansk region

The Luhansk region remains one of the areas where the Russians are showing the most activity and conducting numerous attacks using heavy military equipment. Many of these assaults, however, are unsuccessful, as evidenced by a recent video released by a Ukrainian brigade. The footage highlights the types of equipment the invaders have lost.

"The Russians are unsuccessfully trying to break through the defense line of the 77th Independent Airmobile Brigade," stated the unit's profile on Telegram.

The Ukrainians added that during these attacks, the Russians use various types of equipment—tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, as well as so-called turtle tanks. Many of these vehicles are also equipped with makeshift cages intended to enhance protection against kamikaze drone attacks.

Observers of the war in Ukraine have already identified several tanks documented as destroyed by the aforementioned Ukrainian brigade. Additional T-72B and T-72B3 specimens and the much less common T-90A tank have been removed from further participation in the battles.

Tanks from the T-90 family, developed based on the T-72B, are among the most modern available to Russian units participating in the war in Ukraine. The first of these (the basic T-90 models) were delivered to the Russian army in 1993.

In Ukraine, the most frequently seen models are the T-90 and T-90M. However, This time, a rarer T-90A fell into the hands of the Ukrainians, who have been in Russian service since 2005. Like other tanks in this family, it uses Contact-5 reactive armor but features an improved turret and a modernized 2A46M-5 125 mm caliber gun adapted for longer shells. Additionally, it has better optoelectronics, the Shtora-1 defense system, and a 1,000 hp engine.

The T-72B is one of the most widespread models in the Russian army from the T-72 family. These tanks measure over 31 feet in length and weigh 97,000 pounds. They are equipped with a 125 mm caliber cannon with a rate of fire of about 6-8 rounds per minute, a 7.62 mm caliber machine gun, and a 12.7 mm caliber machine gun.

The T-72B3, the other hand, is an economical upgrade of the T-72B. The Russians focused on adding the Sosna-U fire control system, improving the optoelectronics, and adapting the loading mechanisms to the anti-tank ammunition from the Svinets family.