Ukraine Sent Its Surviving Leopard 2A6 Tanks To Help Save Avdiivka—And Quickly Lost One Of Them

The Ukrainian service mislaid 1 of its rare, and precious, Leopard 2A6 tanks extracurricular Avdiivka successful eastbound Ukraine apparently sometime this week.

The loss—which whitethorn person been nan consequence of a malfunction that compelled nan German-made Leopard 2A6’s 4 unit to bail out—is notable for 2 reasons.

First, it extends Ukraine’s unfortunate streak of Leopard 2 losses. In a small complete a week, Kyiv’s service has written disconnected astatine slightest a dozen, and possibly 13, of its Leopard 2A4s, Leopard 2A6s and Strv 122s. The second are super-armored Swedish variants of nan Leopard 2A5.

Add nan six Leopard 2s nan Ukrainians mislaid earlier past week, and nan service is down a quarter of its champion German-made tanks. Kyiv’s overseas friends person pledged 85 Leopard 2s and, truthful far, delivered 71 of them.

What’s besides notable is where the astir caller Leopard 2A6 nonaccomplishment occured, and what that says astir Ukraine’s warfare plans. The army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade is nan sole personification of Ukraine’s Leopard 2A6s. That a Leopard 2A6 has showed up astir Avdiivka, conscionable northwest of Donetsk successful eastbound Ukraine’s Donbas region, intends each aliases overmuch of nan 47th Mechanized Brigade is there, too.

That’s important because nan 47th Brigade until precocious was portion of Kyiv’s counteroffensive corps successful confederate Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast. In 4 months of difficult fighting since nan counteroffensive kicked disconnected successful early June, nan brigade led Ukrainian forces connected a 10-mile beforehand on nan strategical axis toward Russian-occupied Melitopol.

It was a reliable fewer months for nan 47th Brigade. It mislaid respective of its 21 Leopard 2A6s and dozens of its American-made M-2 infantry fighting vehicles, on pinch perchance hundreds of infantry and conveyance crews. Losses were truthful steep that Ukrainian wide unit felt compelled to shingle up nan brigade’s leadership, mid-fight.

As nan confederate counteroffensive ebbed past month, nan 47th Brigade seemed bound for a play of remainder and reset. Some of its troops were photographed training down nan the beforehand line.

But then, connected Oct. 10, nan Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army launched a multi-brigade assault connected nan Ukrainian garrison successful Avdiivka, which includes nan weary 110th Mechanized Brigade. It was evident nan Russians intended for nan Avdiivka onslaught to tie Ukrainian brigades distant from their counteroffensive and hole them successful a protect fight.

It didn’t activity ... until it did. “Ukrainian officials person already identified nan Avdiivka push arsenic a Russian fixing operation, and they are improbable to unduly perpetrate Ukrainian manpower to this axis,” nan Institute for nan Study of War successful Washington, D.C. noted early successful nan battle.

But arsenic losses mounted connected some sides successful nan people of back-to-back frontal assaults by Russian brigades, Kyiv pulled astatine slightest immoderate of nan 47th Mechanized Brigade’s battalions and companies distant from their training grounds and redeployed them to Avdiivka.

The redeployed forces evidently included nan 47th Brigade’s sole vessel institution pinch its surviving Leopard 2A6s, which earlier past week possibly numbered 18.

Now 17. It’s clear Kyiv is sufficiently worried astir Avdiivka to perpetrate to nan city’s defense an exhausted brigade that’s desperately hanging onto its remaining tanks.

The caller nonaccomplishment of that Leopard 2A6 came astir nan aforesaid clip nan Ukrainian army’s 21st Mechanized Brigade, fighting on a different assemblage of eastbound Ukraine, mislaid a Strv 122—perhaps its first. Meanwhile, nan 33rd Mechanized Brigade, which replaced nan 47th Brigade successful nan south, was losing nan seventh aliases eighth of its 40 Leopard 2A4s.

Most of nan Ukrainian vessel losses are nan consequence of excavation strikes, top-down hits from explosives-laden drones—or both. But nan Russians besides person managed to plink astatine slightest 1 Strv 122 pinch an anti-tank guided missile. And nan caller Leopard 2A6 write-0ff mightiness beryllium nan consequence of a mechanical breakdown.

Tragically, it seems nan 47th Brigade also mislaid an M-2 it sent to fetch nan Leopard 2A6’s unit aft nan tankers bailed out.

The Russians are getting amended astatine sidesplitting Ukrainian vehicles, particularly tanks—and particularly pinch drones. It whitethorn beryllium acold comfortableness to nan Ukrainians that they’re getting moreover amended astatine destroying Russian vehicles.

Sure, nan Ukrainian service successful caller weeks has mislaid a twelve aliases truthful Leopard 2s positive a mates twelve T-64s and T-72s. The Russians meantime person mislaid perchance hundreds of T-62s, T-64s, T-72s, T-80s and T-90s while trying, and truthful acold failing, to seizure Avdiivka.

They whitethorn moreover person mislaid 55 tanks successful a azygous day.