The US M-1 Abrams tanks are exposed in Ukraine — and taking losses

An abandoned Ukrainian M-1 Abrams tank.
Photo: Drone capture via Militaryland.net

The Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade has lost another pair of its best American-made armored vehicles: an M-1 Abrams tank and an Assault Breacher engineering vehicle, Forbs forced to admit.

Two weeks after the Ukrainian garrison retreated from Avdiivka, a former Ukrainian stronghold just northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, the Russian 2nd and 41st Combined Arms Army have turned their attention to Berdychi and the other villages west of Avdiivka.

The 47th Brigade — the main operator of Ukraine’s ex-American tracked armored vehicles originally including 31 M-1s, 90 M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and perhaps six Assault Breachers — pulled back from Stepove, on Avdiivka’s northern flank, and established a new defensive line in Berdychi, five miles to the west.

There they’ve met Russian assault groups deploying banzai-style tactics. Each Russian attack involves several groups of fighting vehicles — lately, wheeled BTR-80s — that, after heavy aerial bombardment by Russian air force fighter-bombers lobbing 2,200-pound glide-bombs, barrel toward Ukrainian lines.

The BTR crews practically dare the Ukrainians to fire off some of their dwindling artillery ammunition, which has been in desperately short supply ever since Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. Congress cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine starting in October.

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