The Russians Spent Months Planning A Powerful Tank Attack. Drones Swiftly Wrecked It.

The tanks' active protections had too few rounds.

For months, the Russian 8th and 41st Combined Arms Armies and 90th Tank Division meticulously planned a bold but risky operation. At a time when most Russian attacks are led by small teams of infantry infiltrators moving out on foot to avoid Ukraine’s drones, the 8th and 41st CAAs and 90th Tank Division planned to attack with tanks and other armored vehicles.

And they even introduced a new tank type: the 47-ton, three-person T-72B3A, which boasts the Arena-M radar-cued active protection system that fires tiny projectiles to intercept incoming enemy rockets, missiles and drones.

“This was an interesting and well-planned operation,” observed Rob Lee, an analyst with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

Russian drones and glide bombs rained down. And then, on July 22, the tanks and other vehicles rolled out. Dozens of them. Traveling along the road between occupied Shakove and free Drujkivka, just west of the ruins of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

The ultimate aim: to force the road to Drujkivka, 13 miles from Shakove, in order to set conditions for the capture of that town. Once in control of Drujkivka, the Russians would have a straight shot at the free city of Kramatorsk, just five miles away.