Russia's Turtle Tank Bridgelayer Is Proof The Russian Army Can Learn And Adapt

Yes, it's ugly—but the field-modified assault bridge should work just fine

Exploiting gaps in positions mostly manned by under-supported Ukrainian territorials, the Russian Dnipro Group of Forces captured the town of Huliaipole in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast this week, extending a drumbeat of Russian advances across the front in Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk Oblasts.

Further Russian gains in the coming weeks could depend on a new, do-it-yourself armored engineering vehicle. A “small box girder” based on a T-80 turtle tank.

The Russians have captured thousands of square miles of Ukraine this year, trading horrific casualties for a long list of settlements also including the neighboring towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad—the last major urban settlements between the Russian Center Group of Forces and the twin free cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, 25 miles to the north.

But since fully capturing Myrnohrad just before or on Christmas, the Russians have struggled to advance farther to the north. The terrain is open and villages are widely scattered—conditions that favor manpower-starved Ukraine’s drone- and artillery-based defense. The manpower-rich Russians by contrast favor assaults through contiguous urban areas, as it favors their own infantry-first offense.

There’s another problem for the Russians north of Myrnohrad: the Kazenyi Torets River, which threads south to north just east of Myrnohrad all the way to Kramatorsk. Reaching the easiest road routes from the Russians’ main bases east of Myrnohrad require them to cross the Kazenyi Torets somewhere just north of Myrnohrad.