The Bulat Tanks Are Tired. But Ukraine Can't Afford To Ditch Them.
They used to be Ukraine’s best tanks. But they’re worn out and they’re too heavy, so the Bulats are fading away.
There was a time, not too long ago, when the T-64BM Bulat was Ukraine’s most modern tank. But times have changed. And now the survivors of the 100 pre-war Bulats have trickled down to some of Ukraine’s least active brigades.
The fate of the surviving Bulats speaks to the Ukrainian tank corps’ huge leap in capability in just the 43 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine. But it also speaks to a shortage of working tanks in the Ukrainian inventory as Ukraine’s roughly 130 ground combat brigades reorganize into a new corps structure, with multiple brigades—each with thousands of troops and potentially dozens of tanks—under a single command.
A photo that circulated online recently depicts a war-weary Bulat in training with the 118th Territorial Defense Brigade. The brigade is holding the line outside Mala Tokmachka in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast, a comparatively quiet sector despite a few recent Russian assaults.
The 49-ton, three-person T-64BM was, until recently, the ultimate T-64—and the best tank in the Ukrainian inventory. The Ukrainian army went to war in 2022 with around 100 Bulats, many if not most of them in service with the elite 1st Tank Brigade.
Two years later, the 1st Tank Brigade had switched to the latest T-64BV, which is several tons lighter than the T-64BM and has newer and much better optics. The 70 or remaining Bulats—a couple dozen have been lost in action—apparently cascaded to the 109th and 118th Territorial Brigades.
The switch makes sense.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
