“World of Tanks” in Ukraine: Rare footage of a head-to-head battle between a Ukrainian and a Russian tank

The Ukrainian military recently released a video on social media showing a Ukrainian tank destroying a Russian tank in a live confrontation captured on the frontline in the Donetsk region. Such images, with direct battles between tanks, are extremely rare in the war in Ukraine, where armored vehicles are rather destroyed by mines, artillery, rockets or kamikaze drones.

“A fragment of the battle: A Russian tank accompanied by infantry fighting vehicles is moving towards our positions. They were met by tankmen of the 58th Mechanized Infantry Brigade. Direct fire was fired. The enemy tank was hit, and the rest of the invaders fled,” reads a statement published on Facebook by the Ukrainian 58th brigade.

According to Ukrainian sources, the Ukrainian tank was a T-64BV. He fired a 125 mm projectile at the Russian tank at the head of the column.

From the video recording, it can be seen that from the moment the Ukrainian tank fires to the actual explosion of the Russian tank takes between 4-5 seconds. Some commentators suggest that the Russian tank – several hundred meters away – was rather destroyed by an anti-tank mine, since a tank projectile travels such a distance in a second at most. Another explanation given is that the “catastrophic” explosion of the Russian tank was caused after the projectile penetrated the turret and caused the ammunition carousel to explode – a well-known design problem of Russian-made tanks.

Editor: Mihnea Lazar

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