Tucked Under Cover With 5 Kittens and Their M-84 Tank, Ukrainian Tankers Dream of Fighting a Russian T-90

Instead, they use their M-84 like artillery

A Ukrainian M-84 about to open fire. TV5 capture

Ten months after Croatia pledged 30 M-84 tanks to Ukraine’s war effort, the upgraded T-72s have finally arrived on the front line in eastern Ukraine—and equipped the tank battalion of the new 141st Mechanized Brigade, holding the line somewhere near the border between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.

The 46-ton M-84 is a Yugoslav version of the Soviet T-72 with an up-rated 1,000-horsepower engine and more automation compared to the baseline tank. “The difference is enormous,” the commander of one M-84 told Ukrainian TV5.

But the 141st Mechanized Brigade is, at present, using its M-84s as artillery—firing around 30 rounds a day from their 125-millimeter guns at targets miles away.

TV5 witnessed one daytime fire mission. The tank and the reporters moved “quickly,” the TV5 host narrated, “so that Russian scouts don’t have time to notice.”

That’s not unusual for brigades and regiments on both sides of Russia’s 43-month wider war on Ukraine. The tens of thousands of tiny explosive drones—Russian and Ukrainian—that are everywhere all the time have driven tanks and their crews underground.