Video shows Russian tank obliterated by Ukrainian marines

A video published by the Ukrainian Navy shows a Russian tank being destroyed by a group of Ukrainian marines that claim to have taken out 131 enemy personnel the week prior.

The 35th Marine Corps Brigade, which originally posted the footage on its social media channels on Saturday, said they obliterated the tank after “successful” aerial reconnaissance and artillery work because it was getting “on the guys’ nerves.”

According to the latest figures from the Ukrainian armed forces, 3,675 Russian tanks have been destroyed since the invasion of Ukraine began 14 months ago, while the Russian Defense Ministry has claimed its forces have taken out 8,809 enemy tanks. Ukraine’s military has repeatedly shared footage online of Russian tanks being targeted, and many Western analysts say Russia has sustained heavy tank losses at Ukraine’s hands over the course of the war.

In the footage, a T-80 tank can be seen firing to its left in an area of razed buildings and rubble. A caption in Ukrainian said it had “directed fire at our position.”

It then moves back along the path it had trod into the dirt, before appearing to attempt to turn around. At that point, it is struck from above and is covered in a cloud of smoke, before continuing to move away.

The T-80 is a Russian main battle tank that was designed under the Soviet Union and first entered service in 1976. While it has been involved in successful military campaigns such as the First Chechen War, the tank has been vulnerable to close-range attacks using Western-supplied shoulder-mounted missile launchers.

Even though upgraded models of the tank have been credited for their mobility and speed, they have also suffered from their main gun having a limited vertical range. A version of the T-80 tank is used by Ukrainian forces, which have also put into service tanks they have successfully captured without destroying.

It is unclear where the footage was taken, however in a previous update the 35 Marine Corps Brigade said it had been “destroying the equipment and live power of the enemy on the approaches to Vugledar”—a town in the west of the Donetsk Oblast, part of the contested Donbas region in the east of the embattled nation.

The area sits on the front line in the east, between the occupied cities of Donetsk and Mariupol. According to the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, on Saturday Vugledar was subject to shelling from the Russian military.

The unit, which was formed in September 2018, said it had, in concert with other brigades, been able to retake “complete control” of the settlements on the path towards Vugledar, where it came up against the 155th Separate Marine Brigade, a Russian naval infantry group formed in 2009, and which has seen action previously in Chechnya.

One of the 35th Marine Corps Brigade’s commanders, named only as Sergey, said it had taken “more than twenty enemy marines” captive and that there was a “strong sense of pride.”

On April 21, it said in the seven days prior, along with the Russian military personnel the corps had killed, it had also successfully hit a tank, an armored vehicle, several mortar and artillery positions, and a radio communications unit. Newsweek was unable to verify these figures.