Russians GoPro’d A Tank Attack On Pervomaiske—It Didn’t Go Smoothly

Near Donetsk city, separatist fighters of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s republic (DPR or DNR) launched a tank attack on that city’s northwestern suburb of Pervomais’ke along the E50 highway—and they decided to record it with drones and GoPro-style cameras on the turret. The result is certainly unusual combat footage, if not exactly persuasive evidence of a military triumph.

In the video, the attacking tanks come under heavy fire, resulting in a prolonged gunnery duel. The video includes footage from an overlooking drone, as well as from inside a tank turret, showing the autoloader feeding new 125-millimeter shells into the gun.

The video, recorded by Andrey Filatov, was posted on the pro-Russian Telegram social media account Military Chronicles on November 16, though a shorter, slightly different version of this footage appears to have been watermarked by Russia Today.

The original Russian post is captioned as showing “Fighters of the DPR NM break through the defenses of Ukrainian forces in the village of Pervomayskoye and storm the village.”

As the DPR tanks (reportedly from the 11^th Mechanized Infantry Regiment) are not shown overrunning any Ukrainian fighting positions, are not visibly accompanied by any infantry with which to occupy ground, and appear to withdraw to a starting position captured a month earlier at the end of the video, the words ‘break through’ and ‘storm’ appear too generous. However, the raid conceivably may have inflicted damage.

Russian commentators describe the action as being undertaken by a tank platoon (3 or 4 vehicles). However, the website Ukraine Daily Updates—which monitors daily battlefield developments in Ukraine—notes an attack by two tank companies (six platoons plus company HQ vehicles, or as many as 20 tanks) was reported on Pervomais’ke on Nov. 10. The first excerpts from the full video seem to have made there way online Nov. 12-13.

The DPR T-72 and T-64 tanks, marked with the Russian white Z invasion symbol, barrel towards Ukrainian positions across a grassy alley of open ground flanked by row upon row of shredded houses, once home to hundreds of families. The ground is muddy, already shorn by craters and tank tracks. A pond called Stavok Myyka to the north also constrains the scope of maneuver.

Under the cover of a smoke screen, the DPR tanks launch their northwesterly attack from the eastern side Republica Mist (“Republic Bridge”) a huge, incomplete concrete overpass at the intersection of Pervomais’ke and Pisky, a suburb occupied by Russian forces late in August. The overpass had been fortified into a strongpoint for Ukrainian forces dating back to 2015 as you can see in this BBC photo essay by photographer Pete Keehart. Russian troops finally secured the overpass late in September 2022.

Initially, the Russian tanks charge forward, blasting distant suspected Ukrainian positions with shells and spraying machinegun fire to suppress any dismounted troops that might be concealed there.

But then at 1:03 a projectile arcs down, exploding just a few meters in front of the point-of-view tank. From then on, footage shows Ukrainian fire landing close to the Russian tanks, which return fire in kind and periodically seek cover amidst the destroyed housing to the sides of the field.

Separated by hundreds of meters, the entrenched Ukrainian forces concealed across Pervomais’ke aren’t visible at any point in the video, leaving unclear their composition (tanks or just entrenched infantry and anti-tank guns?) and how much (if any) damage they sustained.

The Ukrainians call in artillery fire which lands close to the point-of view tank 2 minutes in. At 4 minutes in, a near hit sends the camera spinning to the ground.

The Russian tanks resume their advance along the sides of the grassy corridor, exchanging fire. But as the camera tank rolls towards a pair of DPR T-64s—a type primarily operated by Ukraine, but also pro-Russian separatists—they’re both caught in a shell blast. The point-of-view tank hastily turns away, leaving the T-64s’ condition unclear.

The point-of-view footage shows the Russian tankers continuously on the move over the muddy, crater-scarred battlefield—a measure to prevent Ukrainian fire from ranging in on their position. At some points they perform a ‘carousel’ maneuver, in which the tanks take turns popping up to attack before rolling back into cover. The vehicles themselves are all older models, with loosely bolted add-on reactive armor bricks rattling.

Finally, at 7:30 in the video the Russian tankers begin withdrawing—launching smoke grenades from the turret as they slew their vehicles around. Racing back towards the overpass from which the attack began, the point-of-view tank’s turret rotates 180 degrees to lay down covering fire behind it as shells fall in its wake.

Pro-Russian media claimed the “textbook” attack was successful, claiming no DPR tanks were lost and several Ukrainian positions hit. But all that can be seen is that no vehicle or fighting position from either side can be verified as having been destroyed in the footage.

Context—the battle for Donetsk’s suburbs

Despite Putin’s far-ranging assaults across northern and southwestern Ukraine in 2022, Russian forces have struggled to claw back Ukraine’s military from positions they’ve held since 2015 in the suburbs of the DPR separatist capital of Donetsk, notably Pisky and Pervomais’ke, Optyne and the ‘Ant Hill’, the heavily fortified heights overlooking the Donetsk International Airport.

Over the summer, separatists launched repeated massive assaults that finally captured Pisky late in August. The Ant Hill see-sawed from DPR back to Ukrainian control in September, before falling again to Russian forces in November. That left Pervomais’ke the next Ukrainian roadblock on the E50 highway—subject to the failed tank attack on November 10.

Meanwhile, the DPR’s 100th “Republican Guard” Motor-Rifle Brigade has been attacking Nevels’ke, a town 2 miles south of central Pervomais’ke, hoping to flank the defenses along the E50 highway. That too is not proving an easy fight.

Elsewhere in the southeastern corner of the war’s frontline, there continues a general push by various Russian forces—regular Russian Army, Russian Navy marines, Donetsk and Luhansk separatists, and Wagner mercenaries—with repeated, often costly, assaults on Vuhledar, Marin’ka and especially Bakhmut. Most attack fail, though incremental gains are sometimes made.

This campaign reflects an ongoing Russian effort to secure the environs of Donetsk Oblast, perhaps in hopes Moscow can eventually claim to have control over the entire region.

With Russian forces having withdrawn from Kherson across the Dnieper River—a natural obstacle inhibiting easy follow-on offensive actions by either side—both Moscow and Kyiv will reallocate forces to other sectors, undoubtedly including the long war-torn southeastern sector around Donetsk. Time will tell which side benefits more from that shift, and whether Ukraine will focus efforts to recapture territory in Donetsk, or instead in the south-central Zaporhizhya and northeastern Luhansk oblasts.