Ukraine's military has shared footage of what it says is a targeted drone strike taking out a Russian T-80 tank.
The tank was taken out in the Kupyansk direction, which sweeps through the northeast Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, by the Ukrainian 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in a post to social media on Monday.
Ukraine frequently shares footage, typically filmed using drones, showing the destruction of Russian military equipment and vehicles, including tanks.
In the clip posted by the General Staff on Monday, the camera zeroes in on the tank, before cutting to a shot of the tank on fire. A Russian tank crew member then appears to clamber on top of the damaged vehicle, before a second person appears to the side of the tank. The video then cuts to what looks to be a bomb being dropped to the side of the tank, which is pulled up on the side of the road and no longer ablaze.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
According to the Dutch open-source outlet, Oryx, Russia has lost 301 T-80BV tanks and 94 T-80U tanks, as of Monday morning. An additional 91 T-80 tanks of varying models have also been lost, according to the Oryx data, with seven unspecified T-80 tanks also taken out of action. However, this figure only reflects visually-confirmed losses, so the true tally could be higher. Russia does not provide totals for its military losses.
According to figures published by the General Staff on Monday morning, Russia lost five tanks in the previous 24-hour period. This brings Ukraine's count of Russian tank losses since the start of full-scale war in February 2022 to 3,931.
The video posted on Monday morning is linked to Ukraine's "Army of Drones" project, which has been fundraising to equip Kyiv's armed forces with the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) taking a prominent role in the war effort for both sides.
Drones "are the super weapon here," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, told Newsweek back in February.
"We will win faster and with fewer losses if we have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of reconnaissance and combat drones," Gerashchenko said. "This war is a war of drones."
This comes as Ukraine's long-touted counteroffensive operations have seen Kyiv regain territory from Russian forces over the weekend, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank. Ukraine launched efforts to retake territory along at least three points on the frontline, the think tank said on Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukrainian fighters had started "counter-offensive and defensive operations," but did not provide further details.
