Ukraine’s Super-Upgraded M-55S Tanks Have Equipped A New Kind Of Brigade

We finally know which Ukrainian army unit took ownership of those super-upgraded, but very old, M-55S tanks that Slovenia donated to Ukraine.

It’s the 47th Assault Brigade. A new kind of unit with a very special leader. A famous veteran and author named Valery Markus.

The M-55S is a deeply modernized Soviet T-55, a tank type that first entered service in the late 1950s. In the 1990s, the Slovenian army paid Israeli firm Elbit and STO RAVNE in Slovenia to modify 30 of its 36-ton T-55s.

Among other enhancements—including reactive armor, an uprated engine and a new fire-control system—the M-55S has a stabilized, British-made L7 105-millimeter main gun in place of the original Soviet 100-millimeter gun.

The gun is what makes the M-55S valuable to Ukraine. The British gun is compatible with a wide range of modern ammunition, including armor-piercing sabot rounds that can penetrate the armor of a modern T-72.

The companies delivered the last M-55S in 1999. The Slovenian army in the early 2000s replaced the aging tanks with newer M-84s—and put the M-55Ss in storage.

Slovenian prime minister Robert Golob in a telephone conversation with German chancellor Olaf Scholz in September hammered out a deal whereby Germany would give Slovenia 40 military trucks—and Slovenia in turn would supply 28 M-55Ss to Ukraine. That’s enough tanks for a single battalion.

As recently as a week ago it still was unclear which Ukrainian unit would operate the M-55Ss. A video that circulated online on Dec. 9 depicts crews training on the new-old tanks in the thick, cold mud that’s typical of early winter in eastern Ukraine.

The news finally broke on Saturday, when Markus shared photos with the M-55Ss in the background. The tanks now belong to the 47th Assault Brigade.

The 47th is a very young unit—and unique in the Ukrainian order of battle. It’s an entirely volunteer formation—no conscripts—and it is, for lack of a better term, more Western than sister brigades are. It reportedly leans heavily on its non-commissioned officers, like brigades in NATO armies do.

The 47th also possesses a greater proportion of NATO-style weaponry than other Ukrainian brigades do. The M-55S itself is a hybrid: a Soviet hull with a NATO main gun.

Markus, a famously-mustachioed veteran of the fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014 and 2015 who wrote a popular book about his wartime experience, helped to recruit volunteers for the 47th and also serves as its sergeant major. “In the 47th Brigade, we are trying to create the principles of a truly new Ukrainian army,” Markus wrote on social media.

The 47th was a battalion with around 400 soldiers when it first formed back in April. Over the summer it expanded to a regiment with 2,000 or so troops. The addition of a tank battalion with M-55Ss compelled the Ukrainian general staff to redesignate the regiment as a brigade.

The 47th Assault Brigade operates around Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine.