Russian 'Turtle Tanks' Onslaught Goes Horribly Wrong in Ukraine Video

Russian forces have renewed attacks on Ukrainian front-line positions in the country's Donetsk region using tanks fitted with protective metal structures, new footage appears to show, as battles blaze on across the country.

Ukraine's 79th Separate Air Assault Brigade, operating in eastern Ukraine, published a brief video on Tuesday, showing what it described as a 17-vehicle Russian assault on Kyiv's troops around the Donetsk village of Novomykhailivka.

The clip appears to show at least one Russian tank covered by a metal cage.

"Even the protective metal plating on the tanks did not help against the targeted fire," the 79th Brigade said in a post to social media.

Footage circulated online in recent weeks indicates Russia is using fixed, shell-like metal structures around its tanks in a bid to protect the vehicles from Ukrainian first-person-view (FPV) kamikaze drone strikes along the front lines. The vehicles with the protective cage have been dubbed "turtle tanks," drawing ridicule from open source accounts.

Footage posted by Ukrainian sources in the past few weeks purports to show damaged Russian tanks and the remains of metal protective casing in Donetsk.

Kyiv makes extensive use of cheap FPV drones to target Russian armored vehicles and tanks.

"Russian tanks are Ukrainian FPV drones' 'favorite targets,'" Kyiv's Defense Ministry said last month.

Ukrainian strike drones, artillery and anti-tank missiles fired on the convoy near Novomykhailivka, the 79th Brigade said.

"Thanks to the skill and well-coordinated work of our soldiers, 4 tanks, 6 infantry fighting vehicles and an armored recovery vehicle remained on the battlefield."

The convoy was part of a "massive attack" following a lull in Russian activity around the settlement, the Ukrainian military said.

Newsweek could not independently verify the clip published by the Ukrainian military, and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Novomykhailivka sits on the front line to the southwest of the Russian-controlled Donetsk City, and directly south of the village of Marinka that Moscow captured in December 2023. It is near Vuhledar, a strategic settlement in southern Donetsk that has been the site of heavy fighting during the more than two years of full-scale war.

Ukraine's military said in a statement at 1:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday that Russian forces had launched several attacks north of Novomykhailivka, including an airstrike on the settlement of Antonivka, west of Novomykhailivka.

Russia is bearing down on eastern Ukraine even as it claimed control of another two villages in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region on Wednesday. Hlyboke and Lukyantsy were seized by Russia's northern group of troops, Moscow said in a statement.

After Russia opened up a new front in the northeast on Friday, Ukrainian officials and Western analysts have said Moscow is hoping to stretch Ukrainian resources elsewhere.

Russia is trying to prevent Ukraine from reinforcing its eastern and southern positions, Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of Ukrainian forces fighting in eastern and northeastern Ukraine, told Newsweek on Tuesday. The number of Russian attacks across the front line away from Kharkiv have increased, he said.

Moscow said on Wednesday its troops had captured Robotyne, a village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region that Kyiv retook from Russian control in its 2023 counteroffensive.

Ukraine's military said on Wednesday that Russia was trying to advance around Robotyne, and 15 "combat clashes" had taken place close to the settlement since the start of the day.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.