As Russian Forces Push Toward Bakhmut, Ukrainian Crews In Upgraded T-64 Tanks Push Back

The Russian army and its mercenary allies are shoving many of their best remaining forces into the sector around the ruins of Bakhmut, a ruined town in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

A powerful but increasingly weary Ukrainian force, including the battle-hardened 17th Tank Brigade, defends the town.

With Russia’s winter offensive in the east having stalled out everywhere else—look to Vuhledar to understand why—the Kremlin is desperate to win in Bakhmut. The 17th Tank Brigade and other Ukrainian units stand in the way.

The town itself isn’t worth much. There are no strategic industries. No irreplaceable logistical facilities. Almost all of its pre-war population of 70,000 has fled or died.

But it’s in Bakhmut that The Wagner Group, Russia’s shadowy mercenary company, chose to prove its battlefield mettle way back in May. For months, Wagner’s leaders sent wave after wave of poorly-trained ex-convicts in suicidal direct assaults on Ukrainian fortifications.

“Their tactic is to send people to die,” Oleksandr Pohrebyskyy, a sergeant in the Ukrainian 46th Air Mobile Brigade, told Ukrainian Pravda.

Wagner has lost so many fighters in Bakhmut—5,000 or more killed, thousands more wounded—that the Russian army has had to deploy thousands of paratroopers as reinforcements.

The arrival of regular army forces early this year coincided with a marked improvement in Russian tactics around Bakhmut. The Russians prioritized surrounding and cutting off Bakhmut rather than directly assaulting it.

The Russians’ successful advance on the salt mines of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, signaled this shift in tactics in mid-January.

The Russians slowly are advancing north and south of Bakhmut’s ruins, potentially bringing forward the day when Ukrainian commanders make the hard decision—and order their brigades to pull out of the town, west along the T0504 road.

To be clear, this almost certainly has been Kyiv’s plan all along. T0504 and another smaller road are central to this thinking. “Ukrainian forces are keeping resupply routes open to the west despite Russia’s creeping encirclement over the last six weeks,” the U.K. Defense Ministry stated last week.

The Ukrainians seem to know when to indulge the Russian impulse to attack and keep attacking, even when they’re losing hundreds of men with each assault. Every Russian the Ukrainians kill now is a Russian who can’t resist Ukraine’s planned spring offensive.

The Ukrainian army seemingly will fight for Bakhmut for as long as that fight is far costlier for the Russians than for the Ukrainians. The 17th Tank Brigade likely weighs on the Ukrainian command’s calculations.

Light formations including the 241st Territorial Brigade garrison Bakhmut itself. Heavy brigades including the 17th Tank Brigade, 93rd Mechanized Brigade and 57th Motorized Brigade meanwhile have staged in the forests and fields north of Bakhmut, where their vehicles have room to maneuver.

The 17th Tank Brigade might be the best-equipped of these units. Its battalions ride in around a hundred upgraded T-64BV tanks—Cold War-vintage, Ukrainian-made tanks with fast autoloaders for their 125-millimeter main guns. The tank plant in Kharkiv has fitted the T-64BVs with modern optics.

But even with upgrades, the three-person, 40-ton T-64 is on the edge of obsolescence. Its fire-controls, armor and gun can’t compare to those on newer, Western-made tanks. “The main problem we have with our tanks is they are old,” 17th Tank Brigade company commander Oleksander Syrotiuk told CTV.

Syrotiuk said he’d like to re-equip with some of the Leopard 2 tanks Ukraine is getting from its European allies. The Bakhmut battle could be the last for the 17th Tank Brigade’s T-64s before the unit gets new tanks.

It’s hard to tell, on an hourly basis, what’s happening in Bakhmut, but there were rumors on Sunday that the 17th Tank Brigade was leading a counterattack driving back Wagner fighters north of the town.

For now, the battle for Bakhmut rages on.