A video on social media reportedly shows a Ukrainian paratrooper destroy a tank by single-handedly destroying it with an explosive weapon.
In the footage, the Ukrainian soldier can be seen approaching the tank from behind. As the armored vehicle drives down a dirt road, the paratrooper fires, causing an explosion.
The Twitter account Ukraine Weapons Tracker posted the video on Friday morning. The almost 1-minute clip currently has over 740,000 views as of early Friday evening.
“A Ukrainian paratrooper of the 95th Air Assault Brigade ambushed a Russian T-80BV tank at close range in the East. It was destroyed,” Ukraine Weapons Tracker tweeted.
As smoke billows from the tank, it attempts to fire back before another explosion can been seen from inside. The video then cuts to other footage of what appears to be the tank on fire with more smoke coming from it.
Newsweek could not independently verify the footage and has reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense said that Russia is facing huge equipment losses amid its war in Ukraine. British officials said Thursday that as of mid-October, Russian forces were losing more than 40 armored vehicles a day. Moscow has been relying on its ally, Belarus, to provide it with additional tanks and offensive vehicles.
In addition, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said last month that Russian forces are seeing “significant” manpower losses because they lack training in “basic” types of weapons.
Dimitar Dilkoff
“According to preliminary information, a significant part of the weapons and military equipment that the occupiers sent to the Donetsk and Novopavliv directions are of limited or completely unsuitable for combat use,” the staff wrote in an update on Facebook at the time. “In particular, we are talking about T-62 tanks removed from long-term storage.”
Russian military forces have also reportedly left behind equipment in recent weeks, as Ukraine’s military conducts counteroffensives throughout the country, retaking Russian-occupied territory.
The National Guard of Ukraine said in late October that tanks and equipment left behind by Moscow has more than doubled its firepower.
“The newest example is the T-80 tank, the BMP-3 is also in full working condition, [made in] 2021, even with the documentation—they left everything at our disposal,” National Guard fighter Yurii Tarasov was quoted as saying, according to the press service of the National Guard of Ukraine. “It’s good that we have stupid neighbors who left the equipment in such condition.”