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The $10 million Western main battle tanks that Ukraine once intensely lobbied its allies to secure have been pushed out of active frontline assaults by cheap drones, according to a report published on August 25 by The New York Times.
According to the report, the tanks assigned to Ukraine’s 33rd Separate Mechanized Brigade now spend most of their time parked in hidden forest clearings, collecting cobwebs under protective camouflage netting.
Western tank deliveries began taking shape in early 2023, led by Britain’s pledge of 14 Challenger 2 tanks, followed by Germany authorizing Leopard 2 transfers alongside coalition partners including Poland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The first German-made Leopard 2s arrived in Ukraine in early 2023, while the United States completed its delivery of 31 M1 Abrams main battle tanks by October 2023, supplemented by refurbished Leopard 1 models.
Despite high expectations that the heavy armor would spearhead offensive maneuvers, the proliferation of cheap drones altered the nature of the fight, the Times reported.
Ukrainian commanders told the newspaper that armor operations have become nearly impossible to execute without immediate detection, forcing both sides to curtail heavy armored assaults.
“We’re making virtually no use of armored vehicles,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, who until last month served as Ukraine’s top general, told the Times, questioning how forces might neutralize the advantage enjoyed by drones.
According to the report, Ukrainian soldiers continue maintaining the tanks through routine drills while welding on protective metal cages and explosive reactive armor panels to counter drone impacts.
With frontline combat engagements largely paused, crews told the newspaper they predominantly use the multi-ton behemoths under cover of bad weather to tow damaged equipment out of fire zones.
Faced with the changing dynamics, many tank operators and recruits reported shifting their focus to retraining on ground and aerial drones.
While the Times report focused on how drone warfare forced Ukraine to park its Western-made tanks, it largely glossed over the scale of combat destruction inflicted on these armors by the Russian military.
Combat tracking data shows that Russian troops have inflicted devastating combat losses on Western-made tanks through dense minefields, heavy artillery strikes, anti-tank missiles, and drone strikes — destroying, damaging, or capturing dozens of German Leopard 2s, the vast majority of the U.S.-supplied M1 Abrams fleet, and multiple British Challenger 2 tanks before they were withdrawn from frontline duty.
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