Russia lost up to 20 armoured vehicles in a single failed attack in Ukraine’s western Donetsk region, Ukrainian troops have claimed.
Kyiv’s forces fended off a force of 36 tanks and 12 BPM infantry fighting vehicles as part of a large mechanised assault northwest of Avdiivka on March 30, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, citing a Ukrainian serviceman.
The massive tank charge is believed to be one of Moscow’s largest mechanised assaults since the start of the war.
Aerial footage of the assault posted on social media by the Ukrainian ministry of defence shows a convoy of at least nine tanks and armoured vehicles advancing along a dirt road while coming under heavy fire.
“Ukrainian paratroopers from the 25th Airborne Brigade repelled a massive Russian attack near Tonenke village,” the Ukrainian ministry of defence posted on social media. “As a result, [Ukrainian] warriors destroyed 4 Russian tanks and 2 IFVs.”
The footage posted by the defence ministry only captures part of Russia’s losses, Ukrainian military bloggers reported, with the anonymous serviceman stating that 12 Russian tanks and eight armoured vehicles were destroyed in total during the assault.
In separate footage, a soldier can be seen successfully striking a Russian tank with a Javelin missile. “Sicheslav paratroopers destroyed an enemy tank along with its crew!” the Ukrainian 25th Separate Brigade said.
Geolocated images of the site show a large number of damaged Russian vehicles along a road northwest of Tonenke, which the ISW and UK Defense Ministry consider likely to have been captured by Moscow’s forces.
The settlement is located eight miles west of Avdiivka, which was seized by Russia in February in its most significant territorial advance since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023.
Russian forces have not carried out a mechanised assault of the scale seen over the weekend since the beginning of Moscow’s attempts to capture Avdiivka in late October, the ISW reported, when Ukrainian forces reportedly destroyed almost 50 Russian tanks and over 100 armoured vehicles over a two-day period.
The think tank added that the extent of this latest attack, carried out by Russia’s sixth tank regiment, indicates Russian command “may be prioritising” the Avdiivka region as the site of a spring offensive.
“The Russian military command’s willingness to commit a battalion’s worth of tanks to an attack near Avdiivka indicates that this assault was a priority effort,” it said.
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