Avdiivka Video Shows Ukraine Thwart Largest Russian Armor Assault in Months

New footage appears to show the moment Ukrainian forces fought off one of Russia’s largest tank assaults in more than 25 months of grueling warfare, highlighting the steep cost Moscow’s military is footing in armored vehicles for territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.

On Monday, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said paratroopers from the country’s 25th Airborne Brigade had stopped a “massive” Russian attack close to the village of Tonenke, directly west of Avdiivka. Newsweek could not independently verify the footage. The Russian Defense Ministry has been contacted for comment via email.

Russia captured the strategic city of Avdiivka in mid-February, and fighting has raged west of the settlement in the weeks since. Moscow has claimed a string of villages since taking control of Avdiivka, sparking concerns among Kyiv’s backers over whether Ukraine can successfully halt Russia’s advance westward.

The airborne troops destroyed four Russian tanks and two infantry fighting vehicles, Kyiv said, sharing footage appearing to show the Ukrainian efforts against the Russian armored attack by the 25th Airborne Brigade.

In a separate statement on Monday, the 25th Airborne Brigade also published the footage, saying its fighters had “destroyed a column of enemy equipment.” The brief clip shows several explosions engulfing a number of vehicles that look to attempt to evade the incoming fire.

A Ukrainian open-source intelligence account had reported on Sunday that Ukraine had repelled a large-scale attack of 36 Russian tanks and 12 infantry fighting vehicles around Tonenke, on Saturday.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S. think tank following daily developments of the war in Ukraine, described the Russian attack around Tonenke as Moscow’s “first battalion-sized mechanized assault” since the Kremlin kicked off its offensive on Avdiivka in October 2023. A tank battalion in this conflict typically has just upwards of 30 tanks.

Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov described Saturday’s push as one of the largest armored attacks for months.

Russia has periodically launched large-scale assaults using tanks and other armored vehicles. In the first weeks of last year, three weeks of fighting around the southern Ukrainian village of Vuhledar gave rise to “biggest tank battle of the war so far,” Ukrainian officials told The New York Times in early March 2023.

In the initial waves of attacks on Avdiivka, which had been a Ukrainian stronghold, Russia sustained heavy tank and armored vehicle losses.

During the height of the fighting, Ukraine shared footage appearing to show Russian military vehicles littering the fields around Avdiivka. Russia then switched to infantry-led attacks to “conserve armored vehicles following the first two waves of assaults on the settlement,” the ISW think tank said in mid-December.

The Centre for Defence Strategies, a Ukrainian defense think tank, had said just before Saturday’s attack that the Kremlin had “reintroduced the employment of armored vehicles, including tanks” around Avdiivka.

Despite Ukrainian efforts, Russian forces have advanced southwest and west of Avdiivka in the past few days, the ISW said in its latest assessment.