The Russian Giga Turtle Might Be The Biggest Tank Of The Ukraine War

Take a T-72 and add a metal shell, mine-rollers and a rear passenger compartment

The Russian 4th Motor Rifle Brigade has produced some of the biggest, weirdest and best up-armored turtle tanks.

They’re enormous. Apparently built around T-72B3M tanks fitted with KMT-7 mine-rollers, the “giga turtle tanks”—to borrow language from analyst Moklasen—can do all the usual turtle tank things: clear mines and absorb incoming first-person-view drones.

But they also have a unique feature that other Russian regiments and brigades apparently haven’t copied: a rear extension that may be a compartment for transporting infantry.

We may have spotted a 4th MRB giga turtle last summer. More recently, we got a clearer view of one after a failed Russian assault on Kostyantynivka, a Ukrainian-held fortress town in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, on or just before Friday.

The tank appears to be immobilized in Ukrainian drone footage of the battlefield. Its crew or passengers lie dead around it—one partially flattened, possibly after being run over; another a meal for a stray dog. (See video at top.)